Hello, this is your host, Ross Kenyon.
I'm doing something that I have not done before.
I feel like I did a long time ago, but it's been a while.
But in trying to make this show financially sustainable, I was
able to pick up a couple of sponsors.
It would do me a great favor if you could please listen and
learn more about each of them since they offer something to
different parts of our audience that I think you will care about
These two sponsors and thank you from the bottom of my heart for
becoming sponsors are off stream.
And our bionics, our Bionics is a project developer.
They're the ones that are actually pulling carbon dioxide
out of the atmosphere and storing it and they are doing it
through trees. You know, trees have had a
difficult time within carbon removal.
You should go listen to the show that I did with with Lizette
Louis from our Bionics. We did a show probably about six
weeks or 8 weeks ago and we talked about how the trajectory
of trees, Afro station reforestation within carbon
removal has played out, how that impacts whether we are storing
biological material and anoxic environments for carbon removal
purposes alone. Arbonics is doing something a
little bit differently. Europe has over 14,000,000
hectares of underused land, which, you know, abandoned
farmland. It's low quality pasture.
Not a lot is happening there. A lot of it once was forced.
It was cleared a long time ago for farming, but the global food
supply and better yields elsewhere has meant that a lot
of this land is just underutilized and we haven't
quite figured out what to do with it yet.
So our bonnets uses technology to help land owners find this
land and then restore it back into carbon, removing biodiverse
forest. And that last point is really
important because a lot of forestry that takes place is a
monoculture, which is maybe solving one problem, but it's
not solving the overall Poly crisis, ecological crisis.
So our bionics pursues that way of going to market in order to
offer corporates high quality data backed European carbon
removal credits, helping companies reach their
sustainability goals with maximum trust.
So goals of that conversation with Lizette.
I'll put a link in the show notes if you want some more.
And if you're thinking about this in terms of a cycle here,
Off Stream would be a service provider to our Bionics.
Off Stream is there to make carbon compliance simple for
project developers. If you're listening, if you work
at a carbon removal company or company producing other types of
carbon assets, the data portion of this is super challenging.
If you're listening and you haven't had to read through a
methodology or any registry documentation, you'll probably
live longer than the rest of us who have.
It's non trivial. It's difficult, and that's not
to say that it shouldn't be difficult.
Much of this should be. So we make sure that quality is
actually taking place when carbon is removed or avoided or
anything like that. And Off Stream exists to make it
easier for product developers to not get stuck on the level of
data. Barsha Ramesh Walsh, Off Stream
CEO, She likens their platform to being Agps For your carbon
credit and your MRP plans. It's guiding you through the
jungle of certifications and compliance.
Oh, I love that. That's such a fun, visual way of
putting it. This is a world where you can
develop and iterate on your project.
LC as in minutes, not weeks. Where you can focus on doing the
important work of growing your business, scaling carbon
removal, generating more credits without having to necessarily
hire more employees. This is really an important time
in carbon removal where minimizing headcount may be
necessary for a number of companies to stay alive and keep
going. And Off Stream is here to help
you do that. They're here to help you with
your LCA needs. If you're listening, you're a
project developer, you know one and they are having persistent
migraines for paperwork like go over to use off stream.com.
Tell them that Off Stream can help them handle the quote UN
quote boring bits while they can focus on saving the planet off
stream because paperwork shouldn't be a full time job.
Crack me up. Thank you Off Stream and our
bonics for sponsoring Reversing Climate Change.
I'm really appreciative that you're able to help me do this.
It means a lot. If you're listening to this and
you'd like to sponsor Reversing Climate Change, feel free to
send me an e-mail. I'll put the e-mail in the show
notes too. And let's talk.
And OK, now I'm going into the show proper, the intro.
Here it is, and thank you again for listening.
By way of a brief intro, this is a Co released podcast with my
old friend Heidi Lim Heidi is an amazing tik toker and she is
starting a new YouTube and TikTok channel doing a lot more
long form content interviews. I've been trying to encourage
Heidi for a long time to do this.
I really love the way that she does her work.
I think she's such an important climate communicator in carbon
removal. Public intellectual.
I hope you will support Heidi's work.
Links to follow her work on all the various platforms will be in
the show notes below. Here's our first conversation.
I end up getting pretty vulnerable.
Talk a lot about the spiritual nature of climate work and how
how bizarre the world is and how we fit into it and it gets
pretty real. And I think that's a good
illustration of maybe where Heidi's creativity will go in
her climate communications work. So please support her.
Thanks for listening. If you like this show and want
to be a subscriber for AD free listening and bonus content,
it's 5 bucks a month. Link is also in the show notes
if you're not quite ready to do that yet.
Totally OK. Please give Reversing Climate
Change a five star rating in iTunes, Apple podcast, Spotify,
some other app that you use. And thank you again, Heidi, for
being here. I hope everyone goes and
supports your work too. And here is your show.
Oh hey, welcome to our first long form video.
As someone who's been working in the climate space for many
years, over that time I've developed sort of a thesis
about, uh, why climate media is flawed and why I think there's,
there aren't that many climate influencers out there.
And I guess I'm setting out to try to fill in some gaps I feel
like exist. One of the things I'm seeing is
that there's sort of this wall between everyday people who are
feeling a lot of despair about climate change and the city of
the world who feel like nothing is being done about climate
change. And then the other side of the
wall is someone who's in the industry.
I see a lot of really good progress being made and, you
know, thousands of people who are doing some really awesome
work every single day to work towards those climate goals,
even in a difficult environment that we're in right now.
And I feel like because of that wall, there is so much room for
despair. I've been wanting to create a
platform where I can help people see past that wall and the
people on the industry side, people who are working on
climate who may not have the time or interest to create a
YouTube platform or create a TikTok platform would be able to
like use the platform that I'm making so that you can hear
those voices and hear what cool stuff is happening and in a way
that's accessible to everyone and feels humanizing.
Like I, I would love for you to feel like you have these climate
friends who you can turn to and enjoy listening to and like
getting to know. Today is my first episode of the
series, talking with my friend Ross Kenyon, who is someone who
has been an ally to me on my own personal climate journey,
someone who's a creative in the space who's been podcasting the
Reversing Climate Change podcast for many years.
I've been a guest on it, but I also started out listening to
this podcast on on my walks from the boss stuff to my job before
I worked on climate. Something I always like to
advise people about is if you're thinking about making a career
pivot, take the first step. Create ways to passively learn
or passively start dipping your toe into the next field.
And one of those ways is to just subscribe to a podcast or
subscribe to content creators who are doing stuff in the field
that you're interested in. For me, in 2018, when I was
switching from working in software to moving into climate
work, I was just listening religiously to the Reversing
Climate Change podcast. I hope you like this format.
Let me know what you think. And thanks for spending time
with me and Ross today. All right, Ross, thank you for
being my first, my first guest. Ross Kenyon, I think we first
met because I reached out to you when I was looking for my first
climate role. Is that right?
It was either you or Paul. I was like, I'm going to just
try. I'm just trying to reach out to
you on LinkedIn. I think it was me and maybe
reach out to both of us, but it was definitely at least me
because I remember speaking to you several years ago.
That's funny though. In my memory though, your your
famous carbon removal essay in my mind predates my involvement
in carbon removal. But maybe that's not actually
what happened. Is that?
Is this like a Rashomon kind of thing right now?
I definitely, definitely met you before.
Before the, yeah, before that piece came out.
Well, the reason I'm bringing on Ross is you as my first guest is
you or somebody who I feel like I embodies like what working in
climate looks like. You're a person who is just
really open to genuinely helping people get into the space and
helping people to learn about like what kinds of things they
can do to help in carbon removal specifically.
But I think broadly all things climate and you're really
dedicated to building community around you and like you're
really genuine. You helped me and I know you've
been pushing me to pursue my own creative endeavour.
So yeah, I guess my thoughts on this show is like, I want, I
want to have to make people feel like they have a climate friend,
but not be beyond that to like have many climate friends.
And and that includes people that, you know, I'm talking to
who have made my experience working in climate so special.
And you know, beyond the career stuff or whatever, Like I think
the people aspect of of working climate is the reason why we can
keep each other going, even though we are continuing to face
really challenging odds in many, in many ways.
So yeah, that's that's kind of why I was thinking, yeah, Ross
would be a perfect person for for my audience to hear from and
appreciate you. And of course, you're also a a
founder, an entrepreneur. You worked on soil health, you
worked on Mark different carbon markets.
I'm honored. And you're a media guy, which
I'm trying to be a media guy myself.
You are you you've been doing this for so long successful Tik
Toker. I'm sure the trajectory will
continue that direction too. No, I'm, I'm really honored to
be first here and thanks for, you know, make me blush a little
bit. I really do care about that kind
of showing up a lot. I think LinkedIn has a strong
performative culture. It's very self-serving.
And so much of 1's career life, there's an attitude of how do I
get ahead. And one of the lines I always
liked, it was always said very cynically.
And you can read it in a very cynical way, but you can also
read it in a beautiful way. It's from Hollywood.
It sounds like something like maybe Betty White would have
said or something. It's something like the people
you see on the no, the people you meet on the way up are the
same ones you see on the way down.
And it's true, I think, like you want people to remember that you
were kind to them when you didn't have a reason to.
You took a meeting that you didn't have to, and you helped
more than you took. And I do.
When I die, I want to be remembered that way.
I want people to say, like, wow, Ross had no reason to take that
call. He he was someone that I had
nothing to offer. And he's still, like, took it.
And I want to be like, yeah, there's a pathological version
of that, which is like, people pleasing.
And my time is unvalued by myself.
And I give it away all for free. I hope I'm not doing that.
I don't think I'm doing that. But I like helping people.
That's what I like to do. I feel that.
I hope that our the audience here today gets to feel that
from you as well. And I also feel like you're not
necessarily an anomaly too. Like a lot of really.
Yeah, generous people were able to do were doing that for me
when I was looking for my climate job and continue to.
And then, you know, they really pay it forward.
So I feel like it's just it's kind of cultural.
Yeah, did you 'cause you, you had your people came out of the
woodwork after your how to switch into climate or carbon
removal piece came out? Yeah.
And I think I remember talking to you and you were just like,
yeah, my calendar just booked with people who want, I'm just
giving them like free consulting on that.
Is that, am I remembering that right?
Is that right? That's why I wrote the piece
about switching into climate work, because it.
Went that way. Yeah, it was, it was, it was to
help make make my calendar a little bit less full.
But then it ended up having the opposite effect because then
more people just knew about it. So, yeah, and, and and I guess
it's like this is an extension of that, which is like, I just
cannot take those calls. And I'm trying to think about
how can I like, what's the force multiplier of my impact and
media is it for me? That's my thesis at least, yeah.
I think it's a good thesis. You already have good positive
proof points for it too. It doesn't seem like some
delusional aspiration here. It seems pretty well grounded by
your long term passion for short form video content now.
Longer form medium form video content.
OK, well, I, I guess I, I was thinking of this conversation in
a few parts and the first part was I guess just to talk about
like the people who do climate work, because you are probably
have the largest Rolodex of anyone in climate work unless
you're yeah, you it's really, you have very impressive
Rolodex. Like how many episodes are you
into the podcast? I mean, just reversing climate
change is like 300, maybe close to 400 if you're counting the
unnumbered bonus episodes too. I think carbon removal
newsrooms, like another hundred of those, but I didn't host all
of those. But yeah, so oh.
My gosh, yeah. Oh yeah, 'cause sometimes
there's like multiple people on at once.
OK, So that the people of climate work is sort of my first
bucket that I think would be a good area to dive into together.
And then the second thing about I want to talk about the state
of climate media because I feel like part of what I'm doing is
trying to add to the climate media conversation because I
feel like it's quite it's flawed in a lot of ways.
It's, you know, an uphill battle in many ways.
And since you've been in this world for so long, I think it'd
be fun to to chat about that. OK, Well, I guess my first
question is kind of related to both of them, which is I, I feel
like you are the rare instance of somebody who wanted to work
on climate change, but you had this idea very early on to make
a podcast And there aren't many. I feel like there aren't as many
climate focused or like even clean tech focus podcasts as you
would think based on how immense the problem is.
And very early, very early on in your founding days of Nori, you
guys figured out, OK, we're going to do a podcast where we
talk to other, other folks doing this work.
Like how did that happen? Why?
Why did you do that? It was my Co founder Paul
Gamble's idea. Originally we did it in the
hackathon but Paul always had a really powerful content forward
approach and I certainly thought that as well.
But that's a harder thing to convince the CEO of that maybe
doesn't believe that. So it was nice that Paul was
always been a big supporter of creative media and we needed
that at Nori too. We were so early in carbon
removal that there was no product for several years to
sell. So media for us and storytelling
was the product. And that led to a lot of good
things happening for Nori over years.
Those those gains of your share of public perception for carbon
removal companies. I think Dory was able to grab so
much of that just because that we were always having
conversations that were interesting and strange.
And a lot of people still to this point say, oh, I, I like
this was the first thing for carbon removal I got really into
and it really helped push me. And I hear those comments like a
couple times a year isn't like a huge amount, but it's enough for
if it changed the trajectory of someone's life, potentially,
maybe they would have gotten into carbon removal anyways.
I don't know. But this, this is nice.
It's nice to give them a nudge or make them curious or confirm
something that maybe they had an inkling that carbon removal was
going to be a thing and just push them over the edge there.
But so there's like really powerful, practical business
reasons for having done it, by which I mean there was no
product to sell except for this. And then also, there's certainly
a good idea by Paul and one that I was pretty well suited to
carry out. I think I was pretty well suited
to carry it out too, because I had come from formerly a very
ideologically driven political space where I was like very
black and white, very foundational in my orientation.
And I came out of grad school being pretty confused.
And so that put me in a really good spot to relate to lots of
people ask questions, meet them where they are.
And I think that isn't always that common of a intellectual
headspace to bring to podcasting.
So I think it kind of just all those things together just
worked out. Interesting.
Yeah. I mean, I personally was
listening to the Reversing Climate Change podcast when like
religiously every single, literally every single episode
through my job search. I hope there's a lot more people
who continue to to get a lot out of your conversations on that
podcast. It's been super fun doing it
because it's almost eight years at this point, getting close to
8 years of doing reversing climate change.
And the competition has really stepped up to there's just so
many more specialized shows in climate and carbon removal.
And when reversing climate change started, it was, as far
as I know, I don't, I don't think there's anyone that can
challenge this, but maybe so, but I think it was the only
carbon removal podcast out there.
That's not true anymore. There, there are a lot and many
of them are very good too. Like I listened to several other
podcasts too, to, to make sure I'm rounding out the
perspectives. And some people are more policy
oriented, some are more like business or tech focused.
And I try to just bring all that in there.
But I don't know my my advice to you that I've learned after
eight years. Unsolicited advice, I might add.
Just just do whatever you do. That's exactly you.
I no longer make any apologies for the weird shows that I
program. Some of them are like barely
climate, barely carbon removal. Some of them I sneak through and
like, if you like the way that I talk about things or address
them, maybe you'll also be interested in this thing that's
adjacent, but not like directly climate.
I hope, and that's kind of like a bit of for better or for
worse, and I hope for better for the right kind of person who
likes me personally. And if anyone who listens to you
past or you're you're Youtubing tik toking like they're there
because they like Heidi. They're not going to be there
for probably other reasons or they will grow to love you and
that's why they keep showing up over time.
So I don't know. A lot of people have like more
focused podcasts, though I watch some of them.
You're like, OK, like Cdr policy scoop.
No one's going to mistake the kinds of shows that they're
making like it's it is, it is exactly what is on the tin and
that's cool. My show is not what is on the
tin. Sometimes there's there's things
where people are like, what the hell is this show?
There's a show on the occult. You put out a Halloween show on
the occult. Yes, I did do that.
That's something that I did. Yeah, I this is this is what I
feel like is a an issue with climate media is like you things
are too specialized and, and I'm trying I mean, I on my platform,
I'm talking about, you know, the brain drain into big tech.
I'm talking about, you know, I'm very anti AI, very anti tech
bro. I talked about like, why are we
seeing attacks on science in general?
You know what? Why is there a decline in trust
in science in America? Like those are topics that I'm
going into cause yeah, I do feel that we, we very much sort of
kneecap our our audience because it's a very self selecting group
of people who want to watch or listen to climate specific
media. Like I myself am.
Unfortunately, I don't even consume climate media because
I'm just not interested a lot of times like, and so I, I kind of,
but that kind of helps me to like figure out why, like what,
what, what is the gap here? And like what, what, what would
a YouTube channel look like where I actually want to watch
it? And it helps me to stay up to
date with the climate. And that's what I'm trying to.
That's what I'm trying to create, I guess.
I think if you want something and you can't find it, whether
or not that's media related or not, it's a, you know, if you
feel like you are the right person to make that, that's a
pretty good indicator that if you feel that way, likely other
people do too. And it's worth exploring and
just seeing. Is there any for this thing?
So I think I think you are correct in how you're
approaching this. There are many shows that I
don't listen to or just I'm just like, ah, just, you know, like I
would rather listen to something that's fun or listen to a book
or just, you know, enjoy nature sounds outside without having
something in my ears right now. There's a lot of competition for
that. OK, since we're on, we, we kind
of dove into the topic of climate media.
We can stay here. What is the state of climate
media? As somebody who's been here for
a long time, I, I can tell you how I feel.
It is as an outsider. But you've been doing this for a
while. Yeah.
How, how? How is it going?
I'm very curious about your take.
I have this theory and I'm not sure if it's correct, but when I
noticed at some point many more carbon removal companies and
people started investing more in media and that struck me as a
sign of bad things where it's like, oh, shouldn't shouldn't
you be focused on selling your products?
Shouldn't you like, is now really the best time to be
investing in content? Because Nori came at it because
we didn't have anything to sell. So I just imagined that if that
model is correct, you weren't doing media because you ran out
of things to sell or selling is not going very well because
these are longer term investments in brand equity.
Starting any kind of podcast or any kind of account like this,
it often takes a while to build some momentum and companies
think it's easy. We're just going to record a
show with the CEO and such and such and it's going to result in
increased sales, talent acquisition and retention and
brand equity. And like you maybe have like 10s
of listens for a while, like the the slow build of the RSS feed
subscribership is it's a it's a grind.
So I don't know, I, I see so much content out there and I
wonder how much of it is because there's not more remunerative
ways to spend time. I don't know if that's true or
not. I have that thought sometimes,
though. It reminds me a little bit of
that scene in The Big Short where Steve Carell is like,
yeah, we're in a bubble. Yeah, short, short at all.
Yeah, it's all bullshit. You know, like I hope it's not
that. I really do, but I like that.
It just shows how much specialization there is too.
It's a little bit like if you're in a smaller town or a smaller
industry, I'm going to stick with a smaller town and there's
only a couple restaurants. You got like a Subway and a
Chili's or whatever. And you go to New York City and
you're like, it's 3:00 AM and I can get Bangladeshi food.
Like how is that possible with this much specialization in like
this area? Like it's, I think like as Cdr
just grows as an industry, like the show's become much more
specific and people are trying to find ways to experiment with
format to like what you're doing.
I think what, what Sebastian and Ava are doing right now with Cdr
policy scoop is very smart. There's a lot of stuff like that
that I'm watching. I'm like, cool.
It's innovation with form and format and not just content.
Whereas I'm very much like content driven and like maybe
I'll make video too, but I'm, I am always just like, what's the
what's like something weird that no one is talking about yet that
I'm like really interested in that I can connect.
To my. Professional life.
Jump in here. Yeah, sorry, I'm just rambling
about this. No, it's great.
I was just, I'm thinking of, do you know that podcast you're
wrong about? I love that podcast.
It's one of my favorites. No, I don't think I've listened.
To you have to. OK, well, if you like the
occult, you're gonna love this podcast.
They actually they talk way too much about Satanic panic, like
all the time. But each episode is like totally
different. It's just stuff in history that
we think we know that is just like they're actually like, what
actually is it like Brie Antoinette saying let them eat
cake. OK.
She actually said that when she was 11 and she was a child at
that point when she said it. It's not like when she was
queen. It's things are like misplaced
all the time. They did a long like, like a
very long series on Princess Diana.
They don't did a very long series on OJ Simpson in that
case, yeah, they and they yeah. So kind of panic is in there
sprinkled, sprinkled throughout. I.
Wanna listen to all these? Yeah, I.
Just Diana on. I'm very interested.
And they're a cozy podcast too, where like, they're just fun.
It doesn't stress me out. I guess that's that's one thing
is I yeah, I try to listen to media that doesn't stress me
out. I guess you were asking like my
thoughts on climate media as an outsider.
Yeah. Well, so I don't consider myself
a carbon removal specific content creator like I barely my
audience is not even there yet. Like I, I've made a couple of
things about carbon removal, but we haven't talked about that
basically at all, not yet. I will do like a longer deep
dive on carbon removal. Probably just take what I wrote
and put it in the video form. Cause I've done it in audio and
I'll do it in video. But yeah, we haven't gotten
there yet. And I, I feel like when, when I
think of climate media, it's always either news, which is
again self selecting. It's for people who go and read
Canary media, go and read heat map news because they want, or
grist. I love grist because they, you
know, they are seeking that information out.
And then, of course, the only time people in average like a
regular person sees anything about climate, it's when it's
bad because the that's the, you know, few times that like CNN
or, you know, one of these like mainstream media outlets will
take will will say something about it is like bad stuff.
And then like in the industry side, I feel like these, you
know, smaller media outlets tend to be like really specific and
professional. It's not approachable to an
average person. It's like people who are talking
among themselves within an industry and they maybe are
using even jargon that an average person can't just jump
into because you have to have that prior knowledge.
Yeah. So I just think there's not
enough, enough of those like things on the periphery that's
going to grab just a, a, a random person.
And, and then the reason I'm focusing on TikTok is because
there's just, it's just a medium that like, I think professionals
who are in the industry haven't touched, like even you, you
know, you're, you're really in media.
But, you know, I, I, I was like, Ross, you have to please
download TikTok so you can experience it when we were, we
were talking about it a couple years ago.
And and that's, you're not the only one, Like, and, and I'm
trying to bring the voices of the people in the industry to
that audience in an approachable way that they don't have to seek
it out. And hopefully.
Yeah, like, I want to be like Hank Green.
Like everyone loves Hank Green, but he talks about science and
but you don't care. He talks about he's just your
buddy. You know, he's like the person
that you trust. Yeah, he's a real world beater
too. Just like fluency with history
and literature and science. You're like, come on, man, you
can't be good at all this stuff. I always make fun of John
Sanchez for for that too. I'm like, come on, John, you
can't be good at all this stuff at the same time.
Yeah. But that's a good point, I
really should just just commit to doing it too.
Do the occult stuff. I did I did 1 show about how I
don't like the phrase Faustine bargain for for climate work,
especially for geoengineering, I've.
Never heard. I've never heard that.
You never heard someone say. Explain it.
Explain it to us. Because I don't think, yeah,
I've. I haven't even heard that.
Faustine bargain is is is a is a way of saying a deal with the
devil. So Faust makes a a deal with a
specific demon of some variety Mephistophiles, and it works out
for for Faust, though, like he it depends on the version of it.
So in the Christopher Marlowe version, he gets damned and he
he ends it all. But everyone always talks about
the Gurta version, which is the most famous one.
But on a technicality, he wins the deal and he gets he gets the
good stuff from the demon that offered him all of knowledge
essentially and doesn't have to go to hell for it.
So whenever people say that's a Fausty and bargain, I'm like,
but it worked out. So like, are you?
It's like when people say Epicurean to mean that someone
is a very rich eater and you're like Epicureans were were a
hedonist, but they thought that you would have more pleasure if
you didn't overindulge. So they actually you're using
the word wrong historically. So I'm basically a pet Ant is
what I'm trying to tell you. This yeah, that's the you're
wrong. You're wrong about that's that's
very You're wrong about of you. Is it then we just ended up
talking about, like, Ari Astra films and like, various aspects
of like, maybe a cult is so prominent in our culture these
days and it kind of just went from there.
But yeah, someone left a comment on one of the podcasting review
forms being like, this was this used to be like a climate show?
What, what, what happened to it? I'm like, we just put out a
Halloween show. Can't they have a little fun?
Like, what the hell? What's wrong with that?
Well, you know, you got to ignore the commenters because
people are always going to say something negative no matter
what you do. So yeah, that's my, those are my
thoughts on like climate media, sort of like where it is at the
moment and and why I'm trying to do something a little bit
different. But yeah, what do you think?
I know one of the things I do that's fun that we started at
Nori, but then I ended up continuing on after Nori wound
down last year, is the carbon removal memes account.
We always have a long debate about.
Not even a debate. It's a balance like because you
want to have some of these general memes that people
understand. You're like, oh, that's funny.
I don't even work in this space. And that's I that made me laugh.
And then some of them it's fun to do something that's so inside
baseball that you basically don't know unless you are full
time obsessed with card removal. And sometimes those shows like
the, I don't know if this is true either.
The part of the theory of the inside baseball memes that it's
a velvet rope. And if people see people lined
up outside of a club at night with the velvet rope, you're
like, oh, there must be something good in there if
they're willing to line up for it.
And I'm wondering if inside baseball memes has that sort of,
oh, I wish I could understand what was happening in this joke.
That's the theory. OK, yeah, totally.
And it's hard to know. Like maybe it probably does.
I'm sure there are people who are like, oh, OK, I wanna, I
wanna get on the inside of this. I don't know if it actually
works. So I don't know 'cause I mean,
reversing Climate Change is very much like this.
The other show that I I made and ran for a long time as sort of
like a executive producer kind of role when Nori was active as
Carbon Removal Newsroom. And that show was basically just
like copied Steven Lacy and Sugar Shaw and like energy gang
and political climate shows like that too were great format too.
But it was very much trying to do shows that we're about news
and like in like very much industry inside baseball in the
same way, like if you listen to A16Z, if you're not a venture
capitalist or an MBA, you're almost like, what are they even
saying this is like? Gibberish, but that's on
purpose, I think like they're VCs are elitist.
Like it's, I think it's, yeah, like.
The velvet rope, though, it made me want to be like, well, maybe
I should get that MBA because I don't know what the hell they're
talking about. How?
Totally, Yeah. But reversing climate change had
the benefit of being if you do anything for years, you get
bored of it and you just can't keep doing a show about, well,
what's your LCA like? And oh, carbon removal is having
difficulty scaling and what's, what are your unit costs?
And oh, is it solid sorbent or is it a liquid sorbent and blah,
blah, blah policy like that's super important And like you
have to know it to work in the space.
You're just not going to be that effective.
But I think it's important to just keep finding ways to be
creative because the only way that I have ever been able to
tell if anything that I make is good or not is if I am
entertained by it. There are shows that I will edit
and be like, I can't tell it wasn't that fun to make and it's
not that fun to listen back to and edit.
And sometimes people will be like, I love that show.
I'm like, really, I don't even remember it because it was stick
with me. But you have to find ways where
people are the, the, the way that this works, I think, is if
anyone's going to listen to your content or engage with it over
time, it's one because maybe you caught their attention with the
first show and they stick around because they like you,
specifically you as a person. And then if they like you by the
transit of property, they will like things that interest you
that you keep making on your own.
And that's what reversing climate change is too.
Where there are shows where, I mean, one of my favorite shows
that I've done is with Carl Marlantis.
Do you know who he is? Did you watch the Ken Burns
Vietnam War? Ken Burns Lynn Novick Vietnam
War Series? No.
You have the most extensive library of Yeah, no, I I haven't
seen that it's. So good, it's so well made.
But he's one of the main soldiers that he interviews.
But. Oh wow.
Carl Carl wrote several amazing books about his experience in
Vietnam, and I've learned a lot from him, but I was somehow able
to cajole him into appearing on the show.
I'm like, for better or for worse.
Again, no one else in climate would have tracked Carl
Marlantis down and had him do a show on a climate podcast.
I'm so proud of that. And I'm not sure if everyone
liked it. I might.
I'm not even, I don't even know because you don't know a lot of
the time. But I liked it.
I'm really glad I got to do it. And that's the only way I can
tell if it's quality work and it's general.
Maybe someone will be like searching for Carl Moore Lantis
in their podcast and now finds their way to me.
I hope so, but whatever I'm like, at least I'm like trying
to entertain myself and people can come along for the ride and
if they love it, cool, and if not, then they're just maybe not
the natural customer of my intellect and that's OK too.
I'm not I'm not necessarily I'm not necessarily a non niche
taste. You know, I'm not like chocolate
ice cream. I think I'm like some Neapolitan
freak me so like. Neapolitan.
You must be something like, I don't know, macadamia nut is
that one That's like maybe Contra mustachio.
Yeah, pistachio, I feel like is not pistachio a part of
Neapolitan though, but whatever, it's a, it's a weird.
I, I, I'm an acquired taste in, in in some ways not, not
everyone's gonna love everything that I'm into, and that's OK.
I part of being in business is recognizing that like you have
to fire some customers too, like you're some people are just not
the right fit for what you're doing and that's OK.
That's not a personal thing necessarily.
Absolutely. I also, I think the, the thing I
didn't mention about my, my, how I feel climate media is, is
there's just not enough Like there, there are people who are
going to be drawn to you. There are people who are not
drawn to you that are going to be drawn to me and vice versa.
And I hope that like we just need more of it.
And I, I wish I couldn't count like how many like climate
influence, like major climate influencers, sort of like on 2
hands. Like I, I think there, there
just needs to be, there's just needs to be more.
So I think any shot in this in this in this little realm is, is
a worthy shot to see what sticks, you know?
I feel entirely the same and whenever people have messaged me
about getting started in podcasting, I've always tried to
be very encouraging because like like I've been saying, if people
are going to listen, it's because they like you
specifically and and because personalities are different.
This person isn't necessarily A1 to 1 competitor with you.
In fact, they may bring net new people into climate media and
focused on climate change. They're going to appeal to
someone else, and that's good. The goal is to grow the number
of people who are concerned with and acting on climate.
The goal is not to build the most successful podcast for your
own personal glory. Like maybe that's some people's
goal. I think that's a bad goal.
I think I'd much rather just be encouraging because you really
never know. This is the Machiavellian
version of it. Like you don't know which
direction your life is going to go and like, maybe you need
someone and it's better to be kind to them overall.
And that's a good reason to help people even though they
technically compete with you. But also, we work in climate
change. I feel like I feel like fighting
within carbon removal and climate is.
Silly. Like that's kind of silly.
I don't like the status games of it.
I just try to help where I can. Yeah, OK.
Circling back into yeah, the people, people of Climate
question, what have you learned from being one of the biggest
podcasters in climate? I don't even know if that's
that's strictly true. OK, one of the longest running.
Besides shale Khan. Yeah, shale's.
Shale's been at it for a long time, for sure.
I don't know. I think this tracks pretty
closely with my life, but I came out of a previous period where I
was very deontologically oriented for philosophy, just
things being inherently right or wrong, you know, it doesn't
matter about the consequences, right?
And I came out of a philosophical paradigm that was
trying to figure out how to come up with like a comprehensive
system of, of knowing all of ethics and how that could be
done. And if that sounds like a crazy
project, yeah, it's super hard. And there's a reason why no
one's successfully done it to completion because there's
always edge cases and there's always things that will break
your system if you play with it. And I came out of a grad
program. I did a year of PhD work in
political philosophy and I can go into why specifically it's
not super necessary to explain it here, but various things in
that program disabuse me of that being the correct way to think
of things. So I ended up coming out of that
in a space that was very nuanced loving, where I tried really
hard to listen to everyone and read everything.
I, I'm I in so far as I can pat myself on the back for anything.
I feel like I've read deeply people who disagree with them
each other. Like I I I've not just read
stuff that I agreed with, I've sought out.
I, I like read super widely so I can have really cool
conversations with conservatives.
I can talk with Marxists, like all of it.
It's like comes out as good podcasting that is fair that I'm
not like dunking on people in some mean spirited way.
And that's been really fun. But I think in some ways I, I
realize that I've surrendered a lot of moral authority in that
process. And recently I've been feeling
like many of the things that happening in the world are just
wrong and nuances the inappropriate lens to understand
them. And I've been trying to reclaim
some of that moral authority. So I even look back on some of
that podcasting that was very effective at having productive
conversations and things like, you know, actually, I probably
shouldn't have let that comment go or like, maybe I should have
been a little more aggressive and opposing this particular
idea. And like, Nah, I'm, I'm like
recasting what I used to see as virtue now as vice.
I'm trying to process that right now.
Wow, that was a different direction that I thought then I
thought it would go. Yeah, I, I guess, I mean the,
yeah, it's more of a media question than a people question
in this case, I guess for you. Like I think that is a huge
question happening in the podcasting space in general,
right. Like what's platforming versus
like cosigning? And, and yeah, like it's we this
this whole like both sides thing is, is kind of, I don't know if
this is what you're saying, but like, yeah, sometimes, sometimes
not having some, some sort of like viewpoint or filter can be,
can become platforming, I guess. But it's tough.
I mean, you're inviting a guest and it's like they came into
your home and you're feeding them lunch and you're, you know,
that you they came and spent time with you.
So it's it's kind of a weird awkward situation, right?
Yeah, I never, I never wanted to invite someone to the show that
was going to be a gotcha or they're they're to embarrass
them. In fact, 11 guest that we had on
was doing work that was maybe they characterize it as carbon
removal back when Christophe was Co hosting it with me disagreed
that it was carbon removal and it felt like kind of bad that we
maybe ambushed this person and I'm like, we probably just
shouldn't have had them on. I don't know if that was ethical
to to invite them into a space where they thought they were
going to be having a cool conversation and now they're
like defending themselves. I regret that one.
Hard to say, you know, like, yeah, OK, so I know both of us
have thoughts on this concept of the kinds of people who could
work in climate who choose to work on in big tech and AI and
other other things like software things.
Software is king in the last 10 years sort of thing.
And you and I try to spend a lot of our efforts helping people to
transition into climate work or choose climate work.
And yeah, I wanted to talk about this video that I made recently
who that did really well. A lot of people resonated with
this idea that there is a brain drain into Google, Meta,
Twitter, whatever. What do you think about that?
I think it's true after Nori wound down I I don't know.
I've been applying for full time positions and many of the most
attractive ones are at Fortune 100 companies and even the ones
that relate to carbon removal, the wages there are substantial.
They're the kind of jobs where when you see them, literally
everyone in carbon removal applies at the same time.
Like whenever Frontier puts a job out, strike puts a job out,
Apple puts a job out. Like, you know, like I'll go to
a meet up. It's like you guys apply for
this. They're like, Yep, to a person,
everyone applied for it and watching that it's, I mean, it's
good though. Those are good jobs where people
should be there. But there's also just the brain
drain element of it where people aren't working on climate at all
just because the the wage competition is just so intense.
And I've, I've done a lot more. I never liked talking about this
in public because I feel like talking about any good things
that you do in public obliterates the moral value of
it. But I've done God.
So like I'm in a tough spot because it's relevant to this.
OK, I've been been doing more volunteering and trying to just
get much more engaged in community matters.
And it's, it's been a really positive experience for me.
I've, I've really built connected and a lot of the work
I gravitate towards is very care oriented.
And it, it blows my mind to go to some of these places and see
people who are doing honestly some of the most valuable work
on the planet, doing work in like Hospice care with death and
dying or with transitional housing and seeing these people
and be like, you're probably making like $35,000 a year and
like living here. And, and like, and then you'll
see someone who is coding something that steals your data
and is creating some a horrible monster out of it, the
repercussions of which we may not see for for years.
And it's like, as someone who came from an intellectual space
that cares a lot about markets and the importance of how
markets tell us about what type of work is valuable, seeing the
discrepancy between these things has made me really question like
if the systems that we use for determining value are not
totally messed up in some way. And it can really mess you up.
I've known some people who recently were, you know, opposed
to what was happening with the second Trump administration and
policy changes, but they like certain parts of it that they
had a financial interest in. Like I, I had met people that
had AI investments or had worked in that space or were involved
in crypto or involved in some of the spaces that maybe the policy
changes relative to the Biden administration were industry
enhancing or clarifying in some way.
And it made me feel really sad that people could be persuaded
out of having moral authority because of some pecuniary
interest. And they're very specific
industry. And it made me think of like one
of the most hated passages that always freaks everyone out is
the, the the verse in the gospel about how if your, if your right
hand causes you to sin, you should cut it off.
But I honestly feel like if, if you know, being invested being
with working in AI or investing in crypto or anything like that
causes you to make bad decisions like that, you should just
divest from it. Because if it's going to cause
you to to turn a blind eye to things that are happening that
are just not you would not otherwise support, I think it's
imperative upon you to to stop doing that.
I'm thinking about like my audience for who I'm trying to
pull away from Big Tech are people who have that even
inkling of a moral question of do I actually feel like good
working in this on this like AI, whatever chatbot like.
And also, I mean, in the in the post, I'm also trying to appeal
to people who are really who have their whole lives been seen
as very smart and successful, who should be kind of like
questioning if their talents are actually being used correctly.
Like it's not just that there's money there.
It's like, well, do you like what, what, what's the cost to
you to work on something that isn't morally aligned or morally
dubious? Like, I do understand why people
work in big tech for a, you know, for the paycheck, but I
think a lot of people do it because they actually drink the
kool-aid that what they are working on is important.
And, you know, we all do like mental hoops to justify whatever
we're working on. But I think there's a like a big
subsection of people who have the golden handcuff problem
where they, they don't actually want to be there anymore.
They don't actually feel like their talents are being used.
They care more about some other thing, but it's they're getting
paid so well that it's very hard to make that decision.
And so I'm kind of speaking to an audience who's trying to ask
how what else is there? How do I find that role?
Because, you know, I have this other this other thing I do
where I'm like, I ask people, you know, if they can name 10
climate companies or 10 climate organizations.
A lot of people can't, but you can name 10 software companies.
And yeah, it's like it's very like the, I think it's on people
like us to grease the wheels towards that choice.
Like it's just the, the barrier to entry to even knowing what
kind of jobs there are is, is really high where big tech is
really low because it's everywhere.
We use it every day. Bunch of good points there.
I had a conversation with an old friend of mine recently.
Do you know Drew Wilkinson? Have you?
Drew is part of the Microsoft employees who were working to
make Microsoft much more sustainability oriented, even
though Microsoft is essentially the world leader in that, but
still, you know, supporting fossil fuel extraction and and
involved in some not so nice parts of the economy as well.
And I was talking to Drew about this recently.
He's been publishing about this. So I think it's fair game to
talk about. But he got part time job doing
architectural salvage so he can reuse building materials.
And that's climate work. It pays for crap, but not
everything is about like how quickly can you earn $300,000
and have a nice pile of income sitting aside.
I don't know. I had a thing recently where I
respect Drew a lot for this, by the way.
I think it really, it was inspiring to me to talk to him
recently for it. I had a client recently that I
also just thought that they were doing things that was going that
was just kind of bankrupt them. I thought they were going about
this in a in a bad way. And I'm a contract employee and
I'm telling them to cut expenses and therefore am just sort of de
facto in the sights of cost cutting measures for bringing
this up. But I try to have the attitude
of if you were paying me to tell you the truth, I'm going to tell
you the truth, even if it might mean that I'm going to lose my
job. And I I'd like being able to
feel good about providing enough value to do that is worth the
risk of me losing the short term paycheck.
And as I get older, rather than getting more conservative in
this way, where I like more trying to protect what I have, I
have a family. I don't want to like lose things
like those things are really hard.
Like I'm the primary breadwinner.
I need to like make sure I do these things, but I also don't
want to sell my soul in the process.
And I feel more comfortable for ethical reasons.
Just like telling the truth and doing things that are
individually hard but make me feel like I'm being as honorable
as I reasonably can. And obviously I suck at this
too. And I fail at this.
I am not like putting myself as some St.
I'm like the lowest of the low in some ways to actually really
try to be a decent person. But ultimately, the
responsibility for your actions is what is 100% your own.
Some people are dealt terrible hands and they do not make good
decisions. And they're probably good
reasons for them failing to make good decisions.
And we should have mercy for them and understand that.
But I also think how you choose to be in the world is is your
responsibility. And I just want to be able to be
proud of it. And I think if I took a job that
was doing things that I felt icky about and I worked that job
for 10 years so I could earn good money and I can do good
stuff later, I don't, I don't want to do good stuff later.
I might not be here later. It's my job to do that now.
I don't like talking like this though, because it makes me
sound like I think I'm some some fantastic, wonderful person.
But that is how I'm like trying to make more decisions now these
days. I mean, it is AI mean I, I feel
that way too. It's like a, a place of
privilege to be like I, you know, like to, to make that
decision. But what I'm saying about the
golden handcuffs is there are plenty of people who have those
privileges and could make those decisions who either don't know
how to and hopefully they come to people like us who to get
that guidance or, or they're just not there yet.
Like they don't feel that weight enough yet.
But yeah. And I never blame the people who
are experiencing, you know, that these choices because it's hard.
Like the system we live in, a capitalist system that is making
things harder every day, it seems for us to like, make
choices like that because we are being pressed to, to live with
less overtime. And and then, you know, there
are like crazy amounts of money in things like AI.
So it, yeah, it does. I think it really does come down
to that. What is the cost of your soul?
Like what is the cost of feeling like emptiness inside on a daily
basis because you're not like doing something that feels
actually aligned with you or you feel ashamed talking to your
friends about what you're working on.
You know those kinds of social things, they really do matter.
My wife and I have this funny split where she's very justice
oriented and I'm very mercy oriented.
And obviously you need, you need a mix of both to have like a
healthy relationship to causality in action.
But I yeah. What do you do when someone
doesn't realize that what they're doing isn't wrong?
Or maybe they've suppressed the feelings of wrongness and are
just happy to be getting that good paycheck and are on
autopilot for a while until they have a chance to do something
really positive later. Like shame can be potentially
productive if used appropriately.
But I also I'm like really cautious about entering into
that judgmental space in that way.
I think that how it makes you feel.
I think it's also a dangerous sign because becoming
self-righteous, I was self-righteous recently with
people that I felt disappointed in their actions.
And it's a drug. Like I feel the the anger surge.
And even if it's well applied and deserving as far as you
know, which you might actually be wrong about in some cases,
you see all the nuance like baggage.
It's just like in the back of my head, even like trying to speak
coherently. That's like where I'm coming
from. But you can just like feel how
it makes you feel. Like I don't want, I say this
like lowest of the low thing. I'm, I'm like trying to be aware
that even if even like as a secular person, I like the
Christian notion of sin. And, and what I like about it
too is that it's not, it's not about, there's not really like
gradations of it. It's like you're embedded in it.
And so like one person who does something that's like the worst
crime imaginable, and then the person who just holds anger in
their heart are both equally guilty of murder in this way of
understanding sin, which might strike some people as crazy.
And maybe it is, but I don't know, I, I don't like being able
to be put in a position where I'm feeling that anger and
you're, I'm putting myself above other people and I'm casting out
these people who have profaned. And I think people who get too
enamored of judgment give voice to like a kind of a sick part of
us that likes going to war. It's like very similar to it's,
it's battle. I don't know if you've ever had
that surgeon in you, but I don't know.
I don't think that we should be experiencing as much of that.
I think we should be experiencing more mercy and more
forgiveness and more understanding where possible.
I think there's plenty of places to get angry or culture rewards
anger. I feel like Trump won the office
primarily by like just feeding anger and feeding it things that
are easy targets of anger. And I, I just, even when I'm
justified, I tend not, I don't want to go to anger.
And when I when I do get there, I feel some amount of shame in
myself that I lost control and that that actually isn't what
the world needs more of. And I have somehow like let it
down. Has this gone off the rails for
you? Is this like too far afield?
No, it's OK. It's OK.
It's only OK though. So I think these are kind of
weird. They're.
Very relevant. These are very relevant thoughts
that we all grapple with. I mean, the reason why I, I, I,
I have this like very anti shame bet towards in my platform is
because, yeah, I agree. Like I think shame and anger is,
is a gate to keep people out and it is a something that divides
us. Like I, I, I feel that, yeah.
There's just, I, I, I really feel that the climate movement
would be larger, the environmental movement would be
larger if we didn't have shame attached to so much of like,
like, I, there's this like purity test that comes along
with a lot of environmentalism. And I really think it's because
historically environmentalism was a very white movement.
And that's something that like, you know, we people of color,
people who are, who are people, like lots of there are people
who are not white in the environmental movement who have
felt not welcomed in the environmental movement.
And there's these layers of like, I don't know, there's like
stereotypes of vegans being holier than thou and things like
that. But there's lots of people who,
who are vegan or people who are environmentalists who are, are
not gonna be shaming you for not recycling One thing, you know,
like that kind of purity testing is just is gatekeeping.
It prevents people from trying their best and it makes people
hate environmentalists. And we don't want that.
There's no, there's no, there's no use in that.
So I, I guess I'm, I'm glad that there's like other versions of,
of people who have talked about that more and, and I want to
contribute to that like kind of winding back of that shame
environmentalism or like creating a, like helping
perpetuate a different type of a more inclusive and more
understanding version of environmentalism.
Sounds nice. I think it's can be more
inviting and joyful. It doesn't have to be shame.
I don't like the there's some version of it.
I feel like both the left and the right both have a version of
it where one environmental failure on the level of
individual choice negates the overall approach.
It's like, oh, well, Al Gore just drank out of a Styrofoam
cup. Oh, gotcha.
Yeah, exactly. And then like the the horseshoe
theory around, it'll be like Al Gorey drink out of a cup, a bad
cup and like who? Who is that good for?
This is like the point about anger and maybe it relates to
shame here too, but people like I'm a are you on Reddit?
Are you a Redditor at all? It's the one thing that I
prevented myself from getting into 'cause I know how bad it'll
be for me. Yeah, I man, Reddit is one of
those things too, where there's so many subreddits that have a
justice orientation. I don't mean it in a good way.
I mean it's like someone does something bad to someone and
they get like slapped like on the street or like someone will
like kick off a side like a, a mirror on a car because they cut
them off and that person will crash their bike or whatever.
And there's like watching it. You're just like, you feel this
like, oh, like the the justice of like, oh, they got what was
coming to them kind of thing. And it's just like there's so
much of that on the Internet. The Internet is sort of made for
like feeding like I can, I can see this stuff and avoid it and
like try not to like encounter it, but it does something to you
biochemically. And I think that's like what I
think the Trump administration has been so good at tapping into
is just like beating that terrible part of ourselves that
like seeing the person open palm slapped in a Carl's junior for
something like terrible. And Twitter is hand in hand with
that like people are everything's world star right
now, which is shouldn't be in what a.
Reference there. It, it really is a, it does it,
it goes out to like moral erosion.
Like, do we like, what does it help us do?
Like, it doesn't help anybody except for us to feel a little
bit better for like a second. Well, we're all getting
oppressed at the same time. I, I think it's good to, to like
acknowledge one's shadow and, and see that like, wow, even I
who consider myself to be someone who cares about mercy,
can be moved to feelings of joy at retaliation and retribution.
Like I have that in my soul. Like I thought I was like above
that or trying to, it's still in me.
And like, being able to acknowledge that too, I think is
where spiritual growth, if it can happen, is likely to happen
'cause you're like, wow, I'm just, I'm like down in the muck
with literally everyone else, no matter how hard I try.
And I keep aspiring to crawl out of the muck.
And there I am again. Unfortunately, you're still
human. Very.
Well, for now, we'll see. We'll see what happens, right?
But. Yeah, TBD if Ross ascends beyond
his his human constraints. OK, I guess I'll, I will.
I wanna let you go at some point.
But we obviously could. There's lots of things we can
talk about. But I guess I'll leave with the
last thing, which is I on this platform am trying to help
people to see that there's reasons to not be completely to
feel complete despair. Like there's, there's a there's
actually reasons to feel like thing progress is being made.
And maybe this has gone back to the media thing.
Like I feel like that's something people miss.
They're not reading good climate news.
Like there are obviously like Elena Wood, garbage queen, like
she's she's somebody who's trying to combat that with
bringing good climate news to people.
And we need more of that. What What's keeping you going in
this work, and what are some things that keep you hopeful?
I've been spending time in those spaces recently that are people
that I mentioned who are doing care work or things that are not
remunerative but are worth doing for their own sake and people
who feel called to renounce the status and the financial rewards
that come from seeking a tech job.
I think people who have chosen something different, not because
they had to, but because that is how they want to spend their
time. And that's also someone like
Drew. It's both people who are in
working in some of these housing things that I have met and then
also people that just sort of like came out of a tech
environment and realize, well, I'm not even sure I want to go
back into that. In fact, I'd like to use my
talents for something else. And I think I think that kind of
spiritual change that leads people to do things like that is
makes me reimagine how I'm living my life too.
Because obviously I post things on LinkedIn, I care about
status. I, I like acquiring new
affiliations because it provides a lot of validation where you
can say like, oh, I people think I'm smart and cool and like I am
invited to do this high status activity and isn't that great.
And I like, I feel, I feel really challenged in, in the
best kind of way when I see people that are not doing that
at all. I feel like I do it in a self
aware way, which is good. It's better than not, but I
respect a lot the people who have broken free of that sort of
like deep worldly pursuit. It's crazy though, because if
you are a family person, you, you essentially have to make
sure your family is provided for and is financially secure and
you need, you can't really stay in one place in your career
either. Like, I obviously want to keep
growing and doing more prestigious, more remunerative
work, more people listening to my podcast, more people reading
what I write. And at some point I'm just like
seeing people who are not in that rat race.
And even if I'm not able to fully follow them, they inspire
me and I think that's good. I like when people do things
that have a pro social or pro environmental way of doing
things that don't tell anyone about it either.
I always like those secret moments of just, I did the right
thing because it was a good thing to do.
And I like being able to see small glimmers of beauty in that
way that still exists. Because like, LinkedIn is one of
those places where it's like, if you did a good deed and didn't
tell all of LinkedIn about it, did it actually happen?
It's nice to just feel like LinkedIn.
Yeah. I don't know.
I think. I think some of those things
that are lower status are just sort of small human scale
kindnesses or things of moments of self deprivation that no one
else knows about, but that was the correct ecological or
environmental or social move you'd have made.
And again, I feel like this all the time and I'm like not
optimized for this at all. But I've been encountering more
people like that recently. And I used to think that they
were kind of irrational in a way.
And maybe it is irrational in a little bit of a way because it
doesn't make a difference overall, like maybe an aggregate
it does. But I like that people have
chosen the less comfortable, least comfortable thing, less
comfortable thing for themselves for some ethical or spiritual
purpose beyond just, well, it's my status as my career.
I had to do it for my career. You know, like I like that they
went for it. I care about that more.
I didn't always care about that. And this is probably something
if you'd interviewed me a month earlier, I probably wouldn't
even have given this answer. But I just had some experiences
recently that been really challenging and productive in
this way. So I'm hearing that you're
seeing, I guess people hold onto their morals or make choices
that no one sees and that they're good choices.
Yeah, I think part of it is I didn't even make this connection
to now until now, but have you seen the film A Hidden Life?
I don't think so, no. I'm sorry.
I haven't gotten any references that you've brought to me today.
It's OK. This is the danger.
Of hanging out with me. It's not.
It's not you. It's me, Heidi.
All right, that's good to know. It's a it's a Terrence Malick
film. I think I won several Oscars
too. But it's about an Austrian
farmer in World War 2. He's a, you know, quite devout
Catholic and he refuses to to swear a loyalty oath to Hitler
and is eventually put to death for it.
And it's based on a George Eliot quote about how civilization
advances by these people who do the courageous things but are
buried in unmarked graves, essentially that no one ever
visits. And like, this person eventually
became beatified, which is the road to sainthood.
But at the time, like it didn't stop World War 2, it didn't stop
Hitler. But there's something that's
still very meaningful about his choosing to do that, even though
he had a family but just could, would not serve in the army,
would not swear the oath, even though everyone's trying to
convince him. Like we're going to put you in a
hospital and like just let you be an orderly in there.
It's going to be fine. He's like, I'm just not willing
to do this. Put me to death if you want.
And it's irrational. It's crazy, but it's so moving.
I just, there's something about that.
I'm like, I, I, I am meeting people that have that kind of
character lately and I'm like, I wish I would have half the
amount of character this person does.
And it's just been really, really beautiful.
I feel like I've been learning, learning about myself and about
the world and and the kinds of people that are worth following.
What a yeah, a beautiful end. I mean, I add to this
conversation. Thank you, Ross, for chatting on
this inaugural podcast video interview.
I mean, and I'll, I'll make sure that we get people to go watch
your content and 'cause you're gonna have video soon.
Hopefully I know you have video on Spotify and hopefully other
people will be inspired by your your work over in the podcasting
sphere and beyond. Thank you.
And likewise I'm, I'm happy to take your cues here and I'll,
I'll likely follow you with the right set of nudges.
Yes, I just come and do stuff with you more often.
Thank you for having me. I'm so honored I'm the first one
here. I've learned a lot from you over
the years. I'm happy we're friends, happy
to be supportive of your endeavors, and wish you great
success doing this. Thank you.
Yeah, hopefully in a year we can look back and there will be some
growth. We'll see.
Yeah. OK.
Thanks, Ross. Thank you.
All right.