February 3, 2025 • 32 mins
Climate Change has terrible impacts today, and youth coming of age face depressing prospects. However, they are stepping up to the challenge and could see the fruits of their efforts in a restored climate during their lifetime. Climate restoration requires extraordinary efforts of young people, who are already leading the charge. On this episode, Sustainability In Your Ear introduces another winner of the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes, which recognizes each year a dozen youth for their innovation and action. The program considers kids between 8 and 18. In 2024, one of the remarkable individuals awarded $10,000 by the program is Varin Sikka, a 16-year-old innovator from California. Varin has invented AirCat, a groundbreaking Direct Air Capture (DAC) system designed to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere on a large scale. He's doing more than imagining the technology. Varin has a 3D-printed home version and is working with Siemens Energy after taking AirCat to the COP28 meeting in Dubai held in 2023.
Varin was motivated to develop the AirCat by the apocalyptic wildfires that brought red skies to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2020. On today's show, he shares how he came to be a 16-year-old inventor, the feelings his friends have about climate change, and the advice he would give youth who feel climate anxiety: Get involved. This year's awards will be announced in the fall. Fiction writer T.A. Barron created the prize and named the program after his mother to help inspire kids to make a positive difference in the world. You can learn more about the Gloria Barron Prize, and if you are between 8 and 18 years old, consider entering to be considered for the 2025 awards at https://barronprize.org/
Varin was motivated to develop the AirCat by the apocalyptic wildfires that brought red skies to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2020. On today's show, he shares how he came to be a 16-year-old inventor, the feelings his friends have about climate change, and the advice he would give youth who feel climate anxiety: Get involved. This year's awards will be announced in the fall. Fiction writer T.A. Barron created the prize and named the program after his mother to help inspire kids to make a positive difference in the world. You can learn more about the Gloria Barron Prize, and if you are between 8 and 18 years old, consider entering to be considered for the 2025 awards at https://barronprize.org/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you
are on this beautiful planet of ours. Welcome to Sustainability
in Your Ear. This is the podcast conversation about accelerating
the transition to a sustainable, carbon neutral society, and I'm
your host, Mitt Tracliffe. Thank you very much for joining
the conversation today. And hey, before we jump into the show,
I want to take a moment to thank feed Spot.
(00:30):
It's a site that aggregates podcast information and statistics. They
named Sustainability in Your Ear the number one recycling podcast
and number two sustainability podcast for twenty twenty five, and
we are thrilled. I hope you'll take a moment to
share the show by writing a review on your favorite
podcasting site. Let's spread the word that the path through
(00:52):
a healthy, vibrant planet lies ahead of us and not behind.
And in fact, today's show is going to give you
hope because we're going to be talking to a young
man who is taking action. But first, folks, thanks for listening.
It's been a pleasure to be here with you every week.
Climate change has terrible impacts today we can see them,
and youth coming of age are faced with often depressing prospects,
(01:14):
but they are stepping up to the challenge and will
I think see the fruits of their efforts in a
restored climate. We're going to celebrate the extraordinary efforts of
some young people who are leading the charge in solving
some of the world's most pressing issues. We've introduced previous
winners of the Glory of Baron Prize for Young Heroes
on the show, and that recognizes about a dozen youth
each year for innovation and action. The program considers kids
(01:37):
between eight and eighteen, and in twenty twenty four, one
of the remarkable individuals awarded ten thousand dollars by the
program is Varren Sika. He is a sixteen year old
innovator from California. Varren has invented Aircat, a groundbreaking direct
air capture that's a DAC system designed to remove carbon
(01:57):
dioxide from the atmosphere on a large scale with thetential
to significantly mitigate climate change. Barren imagines Aircat tapping into
the vast network of wind turbines already in operation worldwide
to harness renewable energy to power the process of removing
CO two. And he's doing more than imagining the technology.
He has a three D printed home version and is
(02:17):
working with Siemens Energy and a major power company. After
taking Aircat to COP twenty eight in Dubai and twenty
twenty three to pitch his ideas. We'll dive into Varren's
journey as a teen inventor and his inspiration behind Aircat,
as well as what it means to be selected as
a winner by the Baron Prize. You can learn more
about the glory of Barn Prize for Young Heroes, which
(02:39):
was launched by author Ta Baron at www dot Baron Prize.
That's b A r R O N p r ize,
no space, no dash between Barn and prize. Barnprize dot
org will get conversations started right after this quick commercial break.
(03:03):
Welcome to the show, Varn, and congratulations on the award.
How does it feel to be recognized for your innovative
work on Aircat?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, no, it feels great, and once again, thank you
for having me on the show. I think one of
the big things about being recognized with this award is
that you know, particularly when you get to the stage
on like a kind of large project like this where
you need, like you know, funding to get it going
at like a large scale and you're trying to kind
of pitch the idea to other people. One of the
(03:31):
things that's like important for those kind of people is, like,
you know, I guess, kind of third party validation, right,
Like being able to say, hey, I have this credibility
from these other guys, Therefore my idea is viable and
you don't need to be super worried about it. And
I think the glory of Baron Prize has definitely helped
give that kind of validation, and it's definitely kind of
(03:55):
helping me get along with you know, those stages of
like getting this project going.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
So did you apply for the award? How did you
how did this happen, and how did they let you
know you wont.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
So the award hadslay. It started off with a kind
of application like process where you're going to talk about
your project, how you got into it, and all that
kind of like these kind of questions we're going through
right now, honestly. And basically after that, you get selected
from a group of like finalists and winners and the
(04:26):
top like fifteen winners that they select for like kind
of their I guess, kind of the best projects in
their opinion are a word a ten thousand dollars. So yeah,
that's kind of how that works.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Can you talk a little about your background that everybody
wins an award like this, What first sparked your interest
in environmental science and technology?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I think the main thing with the environmental science aspect
of that is, so I guess a bit of like
background about me. I grew up and still live in
the California, in California in the San Francisco Bay Area,
and so I mean California off and has like these
really nasty like wildfires that happened, right, and so in
(05:07):
the summer of twenty twenty in the Bay area it
got particularly bad where we had a huge wildfire to
the north west or kind of southwest and to the
east of the Bay area, and so it was like
for I would say, like a month time span, the
air was particularly bad at times the sky would even
(05:30):
get like orange and all that. It was really dystopian,
I think would be the best word to put it there.
And because I was like twelve at the time, and
so I saw that, and I knew about like climate
change and how like that's a huge problem today. But
that really kind of got me thinking that, like, whoa,
(05:51):
this is a really colossal problem that's like definitely gonna
viscerally like continue to affect human lives like this, And
so at that point is kind of when I started
thinking about how I can like you know, get into
making an impact on the issue myself. And then I'd like,
(06:11):
just generally, technology is kind of something that I was
always into. Part of it is that my parents were
into like engineering and computer science and that kind of stuff,
and like maybe the fact that like Silicon Valley is
kind of a place that you know, really encourages people
to look into that kind of stuff. But I was always,
(06:31):
I guess, kind of into that stuff. And so come
the next year really twenty twenty one, more or less,
I've really started looking into ways that I can kind
of merge these two interests and that you can use
engineering solutions to basically quickly kind of or more efficiently
deal with climate change.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
How did you land on doing direct or capture? Did
you discover this technology through reading and think I could
do that? Tell me about it?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
So, I guess kind of after my first like spark
of interest in like environmental science, the first thing one
of the things that had been popular throughout twenty twenty.
In particular, was this initiative to like plant like trees
to deal with climate change, because I mean plants like
(07:22):
capture carbon dioxide through photosynthesis and all that. So it's like, okay,
why we just planned a lot of trees, right, And
so that kind of was like one thing that got
me thinking how effective actually is that? Right? And so
later the next year, I did like a little kind
of research blog and I published those two on my blog,
(07:43):
like the findings from that little research, and it was
pretty shocking. Actually. The conclusion that I came to is
that you would need to plant one point six trillion
trees just kind of go carbon neutral. Right, So we
emit like forty billion tons of carbon dioxide into the
year annually, and just to deal with that forty billion,
(08:06):
you would need to plant one point six trillion trees.
And that's not even accounting for future potential like growth
and carbon emissions. And also like the fact that you
would need to remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
to kind of reverse the effects of climate change. It's
pretty Centuries are obviously good for other purposes like combating
(08:29):
deforestation and all that. But they don't work for carbon capture.
And by this point, I'm kind of, I guess, like
knee even the whole you know, carbon capture thing. So
I just kind of kept looking into it, I guess,
and I came across the whole field of like direct
air capture, and I started thinking, Hey, well, how can
I like help to kind of solve some the criticisms
(08:52):
in this field. And that's kind of what eventually led
me to developing aircut.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Can you walk us through how aircat works? And our
audience is somewhat sophisticated, so you can. You can go
further than you might think you could.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, so for sure. So the idea is that so
DAK generally works off of like these two different processes.
One has to do with like fanning to actually kind
of get area where you want it to be. And
then the other is once you have like the air
filtering kind of the carbon dioxide out of it through
like an absorbent chemical kind of material. Then finally, once
(09:29):
you have that captured in the absorbent, then you basically
for certain types of sorbents, the ones that we're planning
on working with, you would heat it up, but certain
other things you can do too, But you do something
to this sorbent, it releases the carbon dioxide, and then
while you kind of have it there, you basically send
it to permanent storage or wherever you want to send it.
(09:51):
And so the idea is that for that first step fanning,
we leverage wind turbines. Right. So the idea is that
wind turbines, as they kind of bin while they you know,
do their whole energy generation thing, they produce this huge
like vortex of air, this high velocity, high density vortex
behind them. And so the idea is that we basically
(10:14):
you can think of it as like placing a giant
funnel behind the wind turbine to capture that air. And
so we're receiving at no energy costs and if you
think about it, actually energy gain like this massive quantity
of air. And then once we've kind of funneled it,
we do like a fairly standard thing, we send all
(10:36):
that air through like a layer of like the sorbent material,
or multiple layers rather, and then when it comes time
to basically like send the carbon dioxide we've captured away
into like permanent storage or whatever, we kind of seal
off the two ends of like this long tube we
have after the funnel and then heat it up and
(11:00):
then basically after that the carbon dioxide goes elsewhere and
then we repeat that whole process after like that.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
So are you calcifying it or what's in? What form
is the CO two store?
Speaker 2 (11:14):
So that's something that we are yet to figure out currently.
One of the idea is that we just kind of
have it in like a tank, like just just as
is in its gaseous form. We don't like solidify it
or anything, and then we sell it to people who
are willing to use it for one of the things
that we're considering is like sustainable aviation fuels. But other
(11:38):
possibilities are also you know, people have talked about like
storing it in like underground basalt formations or like underground
aquifers stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
So yeah, And the other aspect of this is the
wind turbine's total energy output including the process. Does it
also yield additional electricity that can be sent to the
grid or is it can all the electricity consumed by
the process of removing the CO two.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Interestingly, actually the answer is it does not produce additional electricity,
but it does not add it either. Ultimately actually has
no effect on the wind turbine's electricity output to the grid,
and that does winterbines produce a lot of excess energy.
In fact, I think the estimates are that a half
(12:29):
or a bit over half, like half to sixty percent
of the energy a winterbine actually produces gets wasted because
the grid does not have the capacity to take all
of its energy. And so the idea is that since
we are practically leveraging that wasted energy, we're not actually
(12:50):
you can this in a sense taking anything away from
the grid. Though because of that aircat doesn't really have
an impact on what goes to the grid, So it's
we think of it as like being that zero kind
of energy usage.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Now you're working with Semens and a large power company
on a project around this, I'm wondering and thinking back
to what you calculated in terms of the number of
trees that would be necessary to pull down annual anthropomorphic
co two, how many turbines or how many you how
much land space do we need to dedicate to doing this?
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Well, I don't have those particular numbers off the top
of my head. My recollection is that there are close
to four hundred thousand turbines on the planet today, and
if you had an aircat behind all of those, that's like,
I guess you would say a fairly moonshot dream. But
(13:47):
in theior did we would be absorbing four times what
we emit so far.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Well, you got to start somewhere, and a big dream
is a better place to start than a small one,
so you keep that.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
How do you think society is doing in terms of
its ability to deploy enough wind power to achieve your vision?
I mean, are we talking decades of investment? Where do
we need to go?
Speaker 2 (14:14):
I mean, I think the total wind power that is
deployed in order to kind of I guess like strap
aircats onto and like kind of do that work already
definitely exists. And I mean every kind of year, like
a couple like tens of thousands of winterbines are being
(14:34):
added every year. I think in twenty twenty three the
number was like twenty like mid twenty thousand something like that.
So we're making and then that number is growing each
year too, so we're making a lot of progress. And
I think the idea too, is that if we add
basically aircats to newly kind of continually being built winter
(14:58):
turbines as opposed to kind of retrofit old wind turbines
for that purpose. Then we could get to like the
kind of numbers we need to basically quickly kind of
go carbon neutral and then later on kind of go
carbon negative fairly quickly is the idea.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
And as you think about the relationship between DAC systems
and natural carbon capture, what do you think the right
way for policy makers in all of us to be
thinking about the mix of those different technologies or natural
solutions in order to do the drawdown that's necessary for
us to get back to two hundred and eighty parts
(15:40):
per million of CO two.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
From a purely DAC perspective, given what current kind of
technology there is there, like DAC systems are are more
efficient than most like natural kind of means, and so
I think, and then there's also like basic kind of
on site carbon capture related things. But then there's a
(16:04):
whole argument to me made that kind of going with
that allows people to continue like being emitters and using
fossil fuelds without any consequence. So yeah, that's I guess
kind of more controversial, But going along with from a
like carbon capture perspective, going with DAK is probably more optimal.
(16:26):
That said, I've heard that, like there are people trying
to develop methods to like genetically, for example, modify like
trees so that they can absorb other kinds of gases somehow,
or that they can absorb carbon dioxide much faster, or
even working with bacteria to get them to absorb other
(16:46):
gases like methane but also like carbon dioxide too and
stuff like that. We'll see if those kind of get
like more viable then DAK, then perhaps it would be
better to incentivize those, But I think in the current
state of like the art, it's better for kind of
policymakers to lean towards like DAC systems.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Well, Varren, this is a really interesting conversation. We're going
to take a quick commercial break and be right back.
Let's get back to the conversation with Vara and Shika.
He is a sixteen year old inventor from California, and
his aircat direct air capture system earned him recognition as
one of the twelve Gloria Baron Prize Young Heroes in
(17:32):
twenty twenty four. So, Varn, we've talked a lot about
the technology. Now I'm just wondering how did your friends
and family react to receiving this award.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
They were definitely very supportive and happy about it. I
think that was definitely a huge boon to have them
kind of there, like to hear about it. They definitely
I feel like they all kind of understand the scale
of the problem with climate change too, and they all
are aware kind of generally of what I've been trying
(18:02):
to do and like what the kind of idea is.
So they were definitely also, I guess kind of shared
the joy you could think about is when I received
the award, and I think that was definitely great.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
That's great. I how do your friends feel about climate change?
Or they depressed or they hopeful? Do you feel like
you're representative of people who believe we can make that change?
Speaker 2 (18:24):
I think unfortunately, generally, like my friends don't feel very
good about climate change. I think part of like why
people generally feel that, like, oh, there's no way we'll
solve climate change, it's like genuinely over and all that
is because there isn't, like I guess a lot of
kind of good news you hear about that front generally,
(18:47):
because like the kind of things that I guess make
it to the news more often are the things of
like people saying, uh, now, who cares about climate change,
Let's drill more oil or things like that, Right, you
don't hear that, Like these scientists developed this cool new
method of like no capturing carbon faster or something like that,
(19:09):
and so that definitely kind of contributes to that. I guess. Also,
I'm generally more of an optimist, so there's also kind
of that. But yeah, I would definitely kind of advise
people that, like, it's going to be fine, we got this.
Just try to kind of feel I guess better about
the whole situation because we can all, you know, work
(19:31):
together and kind of make an impact on this.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
I think a lot about whether or not schools are
preparing your generation for the world that you're going to face.
Were there mentors or experiences in school that brought you
in this direction or was this a product in I
guess the simple way to put a living in Silicon ballad.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
With regards to the whole kind of climate education part
in elementary school, there was definitely like the occasional I guess,
like maybe once a month, like I know, a little
segment like about some kind of educational related thing that
maybe talked about climate change or some other sustainability issue
(20:10):
in some way. And I think also you would kind
of hear about like technological solutions to that. Like I
remember once we kind of watched some little kind of
I guess it was an advertising video or something, but
it was for this guy who was basically had constructed
like these huge kind of boats to clean up trash
(20:31):
in the ocean, would like these kind of technological solutions
on and off, And that definitely did give me more
of an idea that like, hey, you can in fact
use technology it is all of climate change and sustainability
related issues.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
So did what you learn in school prepare you to
begin that investigation or did you have to teat yourself
a lot in order to get there.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I think it was a little bit of both. I think,
like with regards to a lot of the a lot
of the actual kind of things that I learned that
led me into doing direct air capture, like the facts
of like, uh, how can we use trees to absorb carbon?
And how much does it actually do? And all that
stuff was research that I did, like kind of outside
(21:21):
of school. But a lot of the I guess kind
of underlying skills of like you know, inquiry and like
I guess trying to like look into and do research
for like these kind of topics, and also a lot
of like making related things and basic science related like
skills that I learned through like school science fairs and
things like that that was also built up through like school.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Had you prior to doing AIRCAT, had you been feeling,
you know, kind of skeptical about your ability to make
a contribution to this and how do you feel about
our prospects for reversing climate change?
Speaker 2 (21:59):
I mean, I think before I really started getting into it,
and I mean I mean, it was admittedly kind of
a while ago now, so it's kind of hard to remember,
but I guess I was also kind of pessimistic that, like,
I don't know if we can really you know, some
of this issue. I also didn't really, I guess think
(22:20):
much that like I could I really significantly like contribute
to the issue of like mitigating climate change. Once I
just kind of got into it, that kind of changed, right.
And I think a big thing about like when you're
trying to solve these kinds of issues is just kind
of getting yourself into it, like finding some kind of
(22:42):
pathway or like rabbit hole that eventually leads down this
longer line of thinking that kind of gets you involved
in some solving an issue in some major field. That's
definitely like a big thing about getting yourself motivated to
kind of make a change. Right. So, because it was
really after that that I think my mindset changed more
towards Hey, maybe actually with the right decisions and the
(23:06):
right like kind of technology being developed, we actually can
solve climate change and all that.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Do you imagine actually reversing climate change in your lifetime?
And I guess i'd ask you this question, how does
it feel to have that as a target and to
be involved? Because I don't think a lot of folks,
kids and adults feel like they're involved in the opportunity
to make change.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
So for the kind of first part of that, I
do well. O doun't know where the whether to call
it like thinking or like wishfully thinking that we will
solve climate change in our lifetime, But I do like
to think that. I guess in our lifetimes we will
have kind of dealt with the issue, and then for
the kind of the next generations we'll be able to
(23:52):
I guess reap the benefits of like a regular climate world,
you could think of it that way. So there's that.
I think with regards to the second part of that question,
there are a lot of youth if you kind of,
I guess look in the right places, a lot of
youth like programs and opportunities for other young people to
(24:13):
kind of get involved, and even if they're not sure
how to make a difference in the issues themselves, there
are like ways that these programs will like encourage people
to kind of make a difference and help them find
ways they can just to kind of help them get
involved in those issues. Right, So, I think getting involved
(24:34):
in something like that is definitely like a great way
to get yourself kind of into the issue. Even just
hearing about things like kind of marketing things like the
Gloria Baron Prize, right, knowing that that's a thing out
there is a great way to incentivize people to like
basically try to find a way to make a change. Right, So,
(24:54):
I think things like that are definitely great.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
What advice would you give to another young person who
was concerned about this or maybe you have done this
in conversation with your friends when they say I feel like,
you know, we're stuck, this is going to be a
terrible life. What would you tell them? What step would
you suggest they take?
Speaker 2 (25:13):
So I think definitely then one of the main things
would be to, you know, get involved in some sort
of like program, some sort of like a ward. Also
talk to other people and look for people to see
kind of like what they think on the issue and
if they have kind of done anything, and if so,
(25:35):
what have they done to kind of deal with the issue.
That's definitely a big thing. Is just like if you
kind of feel down about the situation, hearing from other
people and seeing kind of what they think is definitely
a great way to get it like a new kind
of perspective and hopefully not I guess feel so like
down on the whole issue of solving climate change. Right,
(25:58):
So yeah, that's what I'd recommend.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
You already received some substantial recognition at a young age,
like with the Baron Prize, and certainly working with Semens
is a recognition of an initiative that a lot of
folks never get the experience of having acknowledged. How's that
changed your thinking about your future and your work and
your career and what you want to do?
Speaker 2 (26:20):
With it, it's definitely kind of at least at this
point right now, solidified kind of what I want to
do in the future, which is, like, I mean, understandably,
prior to kind of getting deeply involved in climate change
and like aircat and all this work, I didn't really
kind of know what I wanted to do. I didn't
(26:40):
have kind of like a set specific like interest that like, hey,
maybe this is something I really enjoy and want to
kind of go on to do m But now kind
of looking at where my climate work has had in
the fact that I'm kind of like really interested in
it myself, I am thinking that, like you know, in
college and also just like vocationally kind of beyond school
(27:02):
in general, engineering solutions for like sustainability issues is kind
of something that I'd like to continue to work on
in general, and of course, like starting with aircat and
getting like aircats out there, right.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
What do you imagine the world will be like? That
the environment will be like when you have a sixteen
year old.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
That my hope is that it will be in terms
of how the climate is something reminiscent of what it
was like, let's say, one hundred years ago, because my
hope is that. I mean maybe by the time I
have a sixteen year old is actually a like I
don't know, like kind of how often, how far out
that will.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Be, I know the feeling of the question, but roll
with it.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah, I mean, my hope is that we can at
least have made a significant improvement in what the climate
is like back then or at that point to kind
of comparable to how it was like far in the past, right,
So that basically that future generations and that I guess,
and this example we're talking about, my children could experience
(28:16):
a climate that is like a lot I guess better
than what we have today, with you know, less severe
weather events, less wildfires and you know things like that.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Well, I'll tell you, even sixty years ago, it was
a darn fine environment to live in. And I hope
that you bring that world back to the next generation. Varan,
thank you so much for spending time and for working
on the problems you're working on. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
No, thank you so much for having me too.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
You've been listening to a conversation with varren Ska, one
of the twelve twenty twenty four Gloria Barn Prize Young
Heroes Award winners. His aircat direct air capture design has
attracted the support of Siemen's Energy and other businesses. And
he's just gotten started. So let's keep an eye on Varren.
He's going to do big things. And you can learn
more about the glory of Baron Prize. And if you're
(29:09):
a young person between eight and eighteen, consider entering to
be considered at Barnprize dot org. That's Barnprize all one word,
in no space, no dash, Barnprize dot oorg. The prize
was created by fiction writer Ta Baron and named after
his mother to help inspire kids to make a positive
difference in our world. You know, there are a couple
of key points to return to from the conversation. Varren
(29:32):
described a regular climate world, and for those of us
who remember what that was like before the early acceleration
of fossil fuel caused climate change in the nineteen seventies,
it's a call to provide a testament, a vision for
children whose experience of the environment has been tempered by
a sense that there's a growing threat, a hostility from nature.
What we need to tell them is that we can
(29:52):
achieve a beautiful, emotionally and physically reassuring relationship with nature
while continuing to thrive and exploring the limits of humans possibility.
We just have to do it differently than we have
in the past. As Varren said, getting involved is the
solution to despair, but getting involved to pursue an abstraction
like a better environment can be hard. So in addition
to pointing out the crisis, schools need to teach the
(30:15):
historical relationship with nature, providing the writings of John Muir
or Robert McFarlane or Henry David Thoreau, Edward Abbey or
ed EO. Wilson, to name just a few of the
authors who documented the beauty and complexity of nature and
how to explore it gently in in a way that
supports the continuing vibrance of the environment that we live in. Certainly,
(30:36):
we also need stories about young innovators like Varren. So
we'll stay tuned and tell you more about the next
Baron Prize for Young Heroes when it's announced later this year,
and of course we'll also follow Varren's progress and keep
you up to date on it.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Would you take a moment to look at another episode
of sustainability in a year, you know we've got more
than five hundred of these shows, and they are the
number one and number two recycling and sustainability podcasts for
twenty twenty five according to Feedspot, respectively. So take a
moment to give a listen and share it with your friends.
You know, writing a review on your favorite podcast platform
(31:11):
can help your neighbors find us. Folks, you're the amplifiers
that can spread more ideas, so we create less waste.
Tell your friends, your family, your coworkers, the people you
meet on the street that they can find us on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Audible, or whatever purveyor of podcast
goodness they prefer.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Thank you for your support. I'm Metracliffe. This is sustainability
in your ear, and we will be back with another
innovator interview soon. In the meantime, folks, take care of yourself,
take care of one another, and let's all take care
of this beautiful planet of ours. Have a green day.
Hello, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you
are on this beautiful planet of ours. Welcome to Sustainability
in Your Ear. This is the podcast conversation about accelerating
the transition to a sustainable, carbon neutral society, and I'm
your host, Mitt Tracliffe. Thank you very much for joining
the conversation today. And hey, before we jump into the show,
I want to take a moment to thank feed Spot.
(00:30):
It's a site that aggregates podcast information and statistics. They
named Sustainability in Your Ear the number one recycling podcast
and number two sustainability podcast for twenty twenty five, and
we are thrilled. I hope you'll take a moment to
share the show by writing a review on your favorite
podcasting site. Let's spread the word that the path through
(00:52):
a healthy, vibrant planet lies ahead of us and not behind.
And in fact, today's show is going to give you
hope because we're going to be talking to a young
man who is taking action. But first, folks, thanks for listening.
It's been a pleasure to be here with you every week.
Climate change has terrible impacts today we can see them,
and youth coming of age are faced with often depressing prospects,
(01:14):
but they are stepping up to the challenge and will
I think see the fruits of their efforts in a
restored climate. We're going to celebrate the extraordinary efforts of
some young people who are leading the charge in solving
some of the world's most pressing issues. We've introduced previous
winners of the Glory of Baron Prize for Young Heroes
on the show, and that recognizes about a dozen youth
each year for innovation and action. The program considers kids
(01:37):
between eight and eighteen, and in twenty twenty four, one
of the remarkable individuals awarded ten thousand dollars by the
program is Varren Sika. He is a sixteen year old
innovator from California. Varren has invented Aircat, a groundbreaking direct
air capture that's a DAC system designed to remove carbon
(01:57):
dioxide from the atmosphere on a large scale with thetential
to significantly mitigate climate change. Barren imagines Aircat tapping into
the vast network of wind turbines already in operation worldwide
to harness renewable energy to power the process of removing
CO two. And he's doing more than imagining the technology.
He has a three D printed home version and is
(02:17):
working with Siemens Energy and a major power company. After
taking Aircat to COP twenty eight in Dubai and twenty
twenty three to pitch his ideas. We'll dive into Varren's
journey as a teen inventor and his inspiration behind Aircat,
as well as what it means to be selected as
a winner by the Baron Prize. You can learn more
about the glory of Barn Prize for Young Heroes, which
(02:39):
was launched by author Ta Baron at www dot Baron Prize.
That's b A r R O N p r ize,
no space, no dash between Barn and prize. Barnprize dot
org will get conversations started right after this quick commercial break.
(03:03):
Welcome to the show, Varn, and congratulations on the award.
How does it feel to be recognized for your innovative
work on Aircat?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, no, it feels great, and once again, thank you
for having me on the show. I think one of
the big things about being recognized with this award is
that you know, particularly when you get to the stage
on like a kind of large project like this where
you need, like you know, funding to get it going
at like a large scale and you're trying to kind
of pitch the idea to other people. One of the
(03:31):
things that's like important for those kind of people is, like,
you know, I guess, kind of third party validation, right,
Like being able to say, hey, I have this credibility
from these other guys, Therefore my idea is viable and
you don't need to be super worried about it. And
I think the glory of Baron Prize has definitely helped
give that kind of validation, and it's definitely kind of
(03:55):
helping me get along with you know, those stages of
like getting this project going.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
So did you apply for the award? How did you
how did this happen, and how did they let you
know you wont.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
So the award hadslay. It started off with a kind
of application like process where you're going to talk about
your project, how you got into it, and all that
kind of like these kind of questions we're going through
right now, honestly. And basically after that, you get selected
from a group of like finalists and winners and the
(04:26):
top like fifteen winners that they select for like kind
of their I guess, kind of the best projects in
their opinion are a word a ten thousand dollars. So yeah,
that's kind of how that works.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Can you talk a little about your background that everybody
wins an award like this, What first sparked your interest
in environmental science and technology?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I think the main thing with the environmental science aspect
of that is, so I guess a bit of like
background about me. I grew up and still live in
the California, in California in the San Francisco Bay Area,
and so I mean California off and has like these
really nasty like wildfires that happened, right, and so in
(05:07):
the summer of twenty twenty in the Bay area it
got particularly bad where we had a huge wildfire to
the north west or kind of southwest and to the
east of the Bay area, and so it was like
for I would say, like a month time span, the
air was particularly bad at times the sky would even
(05:30):
get like orange and all that. It was really dystopian,
I think would be the best word to put it there.
And because I was like twelve at the time, and
so I saw that, and I knew about like climate
change and how like that's a huge problem today. But
that really kind of got me thinking that, like, whoa,
(05:51):
this is a really colossal problem that's like definitely gonna
viscerally like continue to affect human lives like this, And
so at that point is kind of when I started
thinking about how I can like you know, get into
making an impact on the issue myself. And then I'd like,
(06:11):
just generally, technology is kind of something that I was
always into. Part of it is that my parents were
into like engineering and computer science and that kind of stuff,
and like maybe the fact that like Silicon Valley is
kind of a place that you know, really encourages people
to look into that kind of stuff. But I was always,
(06:31):
I guess, kind of into that stuff. And so come
the next year really twenty twenty one, more or less,
I've really started looking into ways that I can kind
of merge these two interests and that you can use
engineering solutions to basically quickly kind of or more efficiently
deal with climate change.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
How did you land on doing direct or capture? Did
you discover this technology through reading and think I could
do that? Tell me about it?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
So, I guess kind of after my first like spark
of interest in like environmental science, the first thing one
of the things that had been popular throughout twenty twenty.
In particular, was this initiative to like plant like trees
to deal with climate change, because I mean plants like
(07:22):
capture carbon dioxide through photosynthesis and all that. So it's like, okay,
why we just planned a lot of trees, right, And
so that kind of was like one thing that got
me thinking how effective actually is that? Right? And so
later the next year, I did like a little kind
of research blog and I published those two on my blog,
(07:43):
like the findings from that little research, and it was
pretty shocking. Actually. The conclusion that I came to is
that you would need to plant one point six trillion
trees just kind of go carbon neutral. Right, So we
emit like forty billion tons of carbon dioxide into the
year annually, and just to deal with that forty billion,
(08:06):
you would need to plant one point six trillion trees.
And that's not even accounting for future potential like growth
and carbon emissions. And also like the fact that you
would need to remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
to kind of reverse the effects of climate change. It's
pretty Centuries are obviously good for other purposes like combating
(08:29):
deforestation and all that. But they don't work for carbon capture.
And by this point, I'm kind of, I guess, like
knee even the whole you know, carbon capture thing. So
I just kind of kept looking into it, I guess,
and I came across the whole field of like direct
air capture, and I started thinking, Hey, well, how can
I like help to kind of solve some the criticisms
(08:52):
in this field. And that's kind of what eventually led
me to developing aircut.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Can you walk us through how aircat works? And our
audience is somewhat sophisticated, so you can. You can go
further than you might think you could.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, so for sure. So the idea is that so
DAK generally works off of like these two different processes.
One has to do with like fanning to actually kind
of get area where you want it to be. And
then the other is once you have like the air
filtering kind of the carbon dioxide out of it through
like an absorbent chemical kind of material. Then finally, once
(09:29):
you have that captured in the absorbent, then you basically
for certain types of sorbents, the ones that we're planning
on working with, you would heat it up, but certain
other things you can do too, But you do something
to this sorbent, it releases the carbon dioxide, and then
while you kind of have it there, you basically send
it to permanent storage or wherever you want to send it.
(09:51):
And so the idea is that for that first step fanning,
we leverage wind turbines. Right. So the idea is that
wind turbines, as they kind of bin while they you know,
do their whole energy generation thing, they produce this huge
like vortex of air, this high velocity, high density vortex
behind them. And so the idea is that we basically
(10:14):
you can think of it as like placing a giant
funnel behind the wind turbine to capture that air. And
so we're receiving at no energy costs and if you
think about it, actually energy gain like this massive quantity
of air. And then once we've kind of funneled it,
we do like a fairly standard thing, we send all
(10:36):
that air through like a layer of like the sorbent material,
or multiple layers rather, and then when it comes time
to basically like send the carbon dioxide we've captured away
into like permanent storage or whatever, we kind of seal
off the two ends of like this long tube we
have after the funnel and then heat it up and
(11:00):
then basically after that the carbon dioxide goes elsewhere and
then we repeat that whole process after like that.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
So are you calcifying it or what's in? What form
is the CO two store?
Speaker 2 (11:14):
So that's something that we are yet to figure out currently.
One of the idea is that we just kind of
have it in like a tank, like just just as
is in its gaseous form. We don't like solidify it
or anything, and then we sell it to people who
are willing to use it for one of the things
that we're considering is like sustainable aviation fuels. But other
(11:38):
possibilities are also you know, people have talked about like
storing it in like underground basalt formations or like underground
aquifers stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
So yeah, And the other aspect of this is the
wind turbine's total energy output including the process. Does it
also yield additional electricity that can be sent to the
grid or is it can all the electricity consumed by
the process of removing the CO two.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Interestingly, actually the answer is it does not produce additional electricity,
but it does not add it either. Ultimately actually has
no effect on the wind turbine's electricity output to the grid,
and that does winterbines produce a lot of excess energy.
In fact, I think the estimates are that a half
(12:29):
or a bit over half, like half to sixty percent
of the energy a winterbine actually produces gets wasted because
the grid does not have the capacity to take all
of its energy. And so the idea is that since
we are practically leveraging that wasted energy, we're not actually
(12:50):
you can this in a sense taking anything away from
the grid. Though because of that aircat doesn't really have
an impact on what goes to the grid, So it's
we think of it as like being that zero kind
of energy usage.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Now you're working with Semens and a large power company
on a project around this, I'm wondering and thinking back
to what you calculated in terms of the number of
trees that would be necessary to pull down annual anthropomorphic
co two, how many turbines or how many you how
much land space do we need to dedicate to doing this?
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Well, I don't have those particular numbers off the top
of my head. My recollection is that there are close
to four hundred thousand turbines on the planet today, and
if you had an aircat behind all of those, that's like,
I guess you would say a fairly moonshot dream. But
(13:47):
in theior did we would be absorbing four times what
we emit so far.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Well, you got to start somewhere, and a big dream
is a better place to start than a small one,
so you keep that.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
How do you think society is doing in terms of
its ability to deploy enough wind power to achieve your vision?
I mean, are we talking decades of investment? Where do
we need to go?
Speaker 2 (14:14):
I mean, I think the total wind power that is
deployed in order to kind of I guess like strap
aircats onto and like kind of do that work already
definitely exists. And I mean every kind of year, like
a couple like tens of thousands of winterbines are being
(14:34):
added every year. I think in twenty twenty three the
number was like twenty like mid twenty thousand something like that.
So we're making and then that number is growing each
year too, so we're making a lot of progress. And
I think the idea too, is that if we add
basically aircats to newly kind of continually being built winter
(14:58):
turbines as opposed to kind of retrofit old wind turbines
for that purpose. Then we could get to like the
kind of numbers we need to basically quickly kind of
go carbon neutral and then later on kind of go
carbon negative fairly quickly is the idea.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
And as you think about the relationship between DAC systems
and natural carbon capture, what do you think the right
way for policy makers in all of us to be
thinking about the mix of those different technologies or natural
solutions in order to do the drawdown that's necessary for
us to get back to two hundred and eighty parts
(15:40):
per million of CO two.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
From a purely DAC perspective, given what current kind of
technology there is there, like DAC systems are are more
efficient than most like natural kind of means, and so
I think, and then there's also like basic kind of
on site carbon capture related things. But then there's a
(16:04):
whole argument to me made that kind of going with
that allows people to continue like being emitters and using
fossil fuelds without any consequence. So yeah, that's I guess
kind of more controversial, But going along with from a
like carbon capture perspective, going with DAK is probably more optimal.
(16:26):
That said, I've heard that, like there are people trying
to develop methods to like genetically, for example, modify like
trees so that they can absorb other kinds of gases somehow,
or that they can absorb carbon dioxide much faster, or
even working with bacteria to get them to absorb other
(16:46):
gases like methane but also like carbon dioxide too and
stuff like that. We'll see if those kind of get
like more viable then DAK, then perhaps it would be
better to incentivize those, But I think in the current
state of like the art, it's better for kind of
policymakers to lean towards like DAC systems.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Well, Varren, this is a really interesting conversation. We're going
to take a quick commercial break and be right back.
Let's get back to the conversation with Vara and Shika.
He is a sixteen year old inventor from California, and
his aircat direct air capture system earned him recognition as
one of the twelve Gloria Baron Prize Young Heroes in
(17:32):
twenty twenty four. So, Varn, we've talked a lot about
the technology. Now I'm just wondering how did your friends
and family react to receiving this award.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
They were definitely very supportive and happy about it. I
think that was definitely a huge boon to have them
kind of there, like to hear about it. They definitely
I feel like they all kind of understand the scale
of the problem with climate change too, and they all
are aware kind of generally of what I've been trying
(18:02):
to do and like what the kind of idea is.
So they were definitely also, I guess kind of shared
the joy you could think about is when I received
the award, and I think that was definitely great.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
That's great. I how do your friends feel about climate change?
Or they depressed or they hopeful? Do you feel like
you're representative of people who believe we can make that change?
Speaker 2 (18:24):
I think unfortunately, generally, like my friends don't feel very
good about climate change. I think part of like why
people generally feel that, like, oh, there's no way we'll
solve climate change, it's like genuinely over and all that
is because there isn't, like I guess a lot of
kind of good news you hear about that front generally,
(18:47):
because like the kind of things that I guess make
it to the news more often are the things of
like people saying, uh, now, who cares about climate change,
Let's drill more oil or things like that, Right, you
don't hear that, Like these scientists developed this cool new
method of like no capturing carbon faster or something like that,
(19:09):
and so that definitely kind of contributes to that. I guess. Also,
I'm generally more of an optimist, so there's also kind
of that. But yeah, I would definitely kind of advise
people that, like, it's going to be fine, we got this.
Just try to kind of feel I guess better about
the whole situation because we can all, you know, work
(19:31):
together and kind of make an impact on this.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
I think a lot about whether or not schools are
preparing your generation for the world that you're going to face.
Were there mentors or experiences in school that brought you
in this direction or was this a product in I
guess the simple way to put a living in Silicon ballad.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
With regards to the whole kind of climate education part
in elementary school, there was definitely like the occasional I guess,
like maybe once a month, like I know, a little
segment like about some kind of educational related thing that
maybe talked about climate change or some other sustainability issue
(20:10):
in some way. And I think also you would kind
of hear about like technological solutions to that. Like I
remember once we kind of watched some little kind of
I guess it was an advertising video or something, but
it was for this guy who was basically had constructed
like these huge kind of boats to clean up trash
(20:31):
in the ocean, would like these kind of technological solutions
on and off, And that definitely did give me more
of an idea that like, hey, you can in fact
use technology it is all of climate change and sustainability
related issues.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
So did what you learn in school prepare you to
begin that investigation or did you have to teat yourself
a lot in order to get there.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I think it was a little bit of both. I think,
like with regards to a lot of the a lot
of the actual kind of things that I learned that
led me into doing direct air capture, like the facts
of like, uh, how can we use trees to absorb carbon?
And how much does it actually do? And all that
stuff was research that I did, like kind of outside
(21:21):
of school. But a lot of the I guess kind
of underlying skills of like you know, inquiry and like
I guess trying to like look into and do research
for like these kind of topics, and also a lot
of like making related things and basic science related like
skills that I learned through like school science fairs and
things like that that was also built up through like school.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Had you prior to doing AIRCAT, had you been feeling,
you know, kind of skeptical about your ability to make
a contribution to this and how do you feel about
our prospects for reversing climate change?
Speaker 2 (21:59):
I mean, I think before I really started getting into it,
and I mean I mean, it was admittedly kind of
a while ago now, so it's kind of hard to remember,
but I guess I was also kind of pessimistic that, like,
I don't know if we can really you know, some
of this issue. I also didn't really, I guess think
(22:20):
much that like I could I really significantly like contribute
to the issue of like mitigating climate change. Once I
just kind of got into it, that kind of changed, right.
And I think a big thing about like when you're
trying to solve these kinds of issues is just kind
of getting yourself into it, like finding some kind of
(22:42):
pathway or like rabbit hole that eventually leads down this
longer line of thinking that kind of gets you involved
in some solving an issue in some major field. That's
definitely like a big thing about getting yourself motivated to
kind of make a change. Right. So, because it was
really after that that I think my mindset changed more
towards Hey, maybe actually with the right decisions and the
(23:06):
right like kind of technology being developed, we actually can
solve climate change and all that.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Do you imagine actually reversing climate change in your lifetime?
And I guess i'd ask you this question, how does
it feel to have that as a target and to
be involved? Because I don't think a lot of folks,
kids and adults feel like they're involved in the opportunity
to make change.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
So for the kind of first part of that, I
do well. O doun't know where the whether to call
it like thinking or like wishfully thinking that we will
solve climate change in our lifetime, But I do like
to think that. I guess in our lifetimes we will
have kind of dealt with the issue, and then for
the kind of the next generations we'll be able to
(23:52):
I guess reap the benefits of like a regular climate world,
you could think of it that way. So there's that.
I think with regards to the second part of that question,
there are a lot of youth if you kind of,
I guess look in the right places, a lot of
youth like programs and opportunities for other young people to
(24:13):
kind of get involved, and even if they're not sure
how to make a difference in the issues themselves, there
are like ways that these programs will like encourage people
to kind of make a difference and help them find
ways they can just to kind of help them get
involved in those issues. Right, So, I think getting involved
(24:34):
in something like that is definitely like a great way
to get yourself kind of into the issue. Even just
hearing about things like kind of marketing things like the
Gloria Baron Prize, right, knowing that that's a thing out
there is a great way to incentivize people to like
basically try to find a way to make a change. Right, So,
(24:54):
I think things like that are definitely great.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
What advice would you give to another young person who
was concerned about this or maybe you have done this
in conversation with your friends when they say I feel like,
you know, we're stuck, this is going to be a
terrible life. What would you tell them? What step would
you suggest they take?
Speaker 2 (25:13):
So I think definitely then one of the main things
would be to, you know, get involved in some sort
of like program, some sort of like a ward. Also
talk to other people and look for people to see
kind of like what they think on the issue and
if they have kind of done anything, and if so,
(25:35):
what have they done to kind of deal with the issue.
That's definitely a big thing. Is just like if you
kind of feel down about the situation, hearing from other
people and seeing kind of what they think is definitely
a great way to get it like a new kind
of perspective and hopefully not I guess feel so like
down on the whole issue of solving climate change. Right,
(25:58):
So yeah, that's what I'd recommend.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
You already received some substantial recognition at a young age,
like with the Baron Prize, and certainly working with Semens
is a recognition of an initiative that a lot of
folks never get the experience of having acknowledged. How's that
changed your thinking about your future and your work and
your career and what you want to do?
Speaker 2 (26:20):
With it, it's definitely kind of at least at this
point right now, solidified kind of what I want to
do in the future, which is, like, I mean, understandably,
prior to kind of getting deeply involved in climate change
and like aircat and all this work, I didn't really
kind of know what I wanted to do. I didn't
(26:40):
have kind of like a set specific like interest that like, hey,
maybe this is something I really enjoy and want to
kind of go on to do m But now kind
of looking at where my climate work has had in
the fact that I'm kind of like really interested in
it myself, I am thinking that, like you know, in
college and also just like vocationally kind of beyond school
(27:02):
in general, engineering solutions for like sustainability issues is kind
of something that I'd like to continue to work on
in general, and of course, like starting with aircat and
getting like aircats out there, right.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
What do you imagine the world will be like? That
the environment will be like when you have a sixteen
year old.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
That my hope is that it will be in terms
of how the climate is something reminiscent of what it
was like, let's say, one hundred years ago, because my
hope is that. I mean maybe by the time I
have a sixteen year old is actually a like I
don't know, like kind of how often, how far out
that will.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Be, I know the feeling of the question, but roll
with it.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah, I mean, my hope is that we can at
least have made a significant improvement in what the climate
is like back then or at that point to kind
of comparable to how it was like far in the past, right,
So that basically that future generations and that I guess,
and this example we're talking about, my children could experience
(28:16):
a climate that is like a lot I guess better
than what we have today, with you know, less severe
weather events, less wildfires and you know things like that.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Well, I'll tell you, even sixty years ago, it was
a darn fine environment to live in. And I hope
that you bring that world back to the next generation. Varan,
thank you so much for spending time and for working
on the problems you're working on. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
No, thank you so much for having me too.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
You've been listening to a conversation with varren Ska, one
of the twelve twenty twenty four Gloria Barn Prize Young
Heroes Award winners. His aircat direct air capture design has
attracted the support of Siemen's Energy and other businesses. And
he's just gotten started. So let's keep an eye on Varren.
He's going to do big things. And you can learn
more about the glory of Baron Prize. And if you're
(29:09):
a young person between eight and eighteen, consider entering to
be considered at Barnprize dot org. That's Barnprize all one word,
in no space, no dash, Barnprize dot oorg. The prize
was created by fiction writer Ta Baron and named after
his mother to help inspire kids to make a positive
difference in our world. You know, there are a couple
of key points to return to from the conversation. Varren
(29:32):
described a regular climate world, and for those of us
who remember what that was like before the early acceleration
of fossil fuel caused climate change in the nineteen seventies,
it's a call to provide a testament, a vision for
children whose experience of the environment has been tempered by
a sense that there's a growing threat, a hostility from nature.
What we need to tell them is that we can
(29:52):
achieve a beautiful, emotionally and physically reassuring relationship with nature
while continuing to thrive and exploring the limits of humans possibility.
We just have to do it differently than we have
in the past. As Varren said, getting involved is the
solution to despair, but getting involved to pursue an abstraction
like a better environment can be hard. So in addition
to pointing out the crisis, schools need to teach the
(30:15):
historical relationship with nature, providing the writings of John Muir
or Robert McFarlane or Henry David Thoreau, Edward Abbey or
ed EO. Wilson, to name just a few of the
authors who documented the beauty and complexity of nature and
how to explore it gently in in a way that
supports the continuing vibrance of the environment that we live in. Certainly,
(30:36):
we also need stories about young innovators like Varren. So
we'll stay tuned and tell you more about the next
Baron Prize for Young Heroes when it's announced later this year,
and of course we'll also follow Varren's progress and keep
you up to date on it.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Would you take a moment to look at another episode
of sustainability in a year, you know we've got more
than five hundred of these shows, and they are the
number one and number two recycling and sustainability podcasts for
twenty twenty five according to Feedspot, respectively. So take a
moment to give a listen and share it with your friends.
You know, writing a review on your favorite podcast platform
(31:11):
can help your neighbors find us. Folks, you're the amplifiers
that can spread more ideas, so we create less waste.
Tell your friends, your family, your coworkers, the people you
meet on the street that they can find us on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Audible, or whatever purveyor of podcast
goodness they prefer.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Thank you for your support. I'm Metracliffe. This is sustainability
in your ear, and we will be back with another
innovator interview soon. In the meantime, folks, take care of yourself,
take care of one another, and let's all take care
of this beautiful planet of ours. Have a green day.
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