Climate Change Head-on: The Power of Innovation, Legislation and Global Cooperation feat. Dr. Keith Wolf

Join us as we try to slap some sense into the air about the stark realities of climate change with the incredible Dr. Keith Wolf.  Dr. Wolf is a NOAA ambassador, and a lauded documentary filmmaker (most notably Under the Puget Sound, as well as the upcoming documentary series OCEANS, and the more hopeful INNOVATIONS), as he unravels the dire consequences of species loss and the intriguing implications of the Endangered Species Act of 1997. What are the potential solutions hidden in technological innovation and climate literacy that can turn the tide on environmental degradation?  We try and pick at it the best we can with Keith!

Our conversation veers into the urgent need to address global climate change and the crucial insights of the IPCC report. We explore the influence of even our own Electoral College on climate change and our own impact on developing nations. Dr. Wolf's first-hand experiences freshly from working on his two upcoming documentary series (OCEANS, and INNOVATIONS) take us deeper into the vital need for more climate change discourse.

Last, we highlight emerging technologies that offer incredible promise to transform environmental conservation.   And yeah, leave us having some HOPE!   It's a wild ride through the perils of touring in the music industry in our latest TOURROR STORIES segment as well as another WISH FACTOR segment.   We get silly to cleanse our palette, but at the heart this episode is all about how we, as a global community, can rise above the pressing climate crisis and make a difference.   NO AMOUNT TOO SMALL if we are trying together.   

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Guess what? Over 25 years we have lost all kinds of animals they're now 23 species listed on the Endangered Species Act and all their critical habitat. There were four in 1997. We've lost some incredible animals and beauty down there and it's akin to what's happened in Florida, in the coral reefs and all over the world. And Australia as well, and so the 1997 version was a wake up call.

Speaker 2: 0:26

And it just took 25 years. That's a part. That's so alarming. I think that people need to make the correlation between like this wasn't, this wasn't, 100 years later. This is, you know, 25 years.

Speaker 3: 0:43

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, welcome to Slap the Power.

Speaker 2: 0:59

Slap it back, that's right.

Speaker 3: 1:00

The world may not need another podcast, but it definitely.

Speaker 2: 1:03

It definitely needs a slap in its huge face.

Speaker 3: 1:06

That's right. And it's huge, huge face, that's right. We are so stoked today on the show we we are honored to have Dr Keith Wolf. We're going to be chopping it up about what the realities are. On for it so many things. He's a documentary filmmaker, he's a doctor and he is. He works for NOAA, the National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration. I mean, the guy is he's legit, he's legit. Yeah, he gets up early in the morning, Really really early.

Speaker 2: 1:32

Also, I think one of the best things about this conversation was how hopeful it was. Yes, I don't know about y'all, but I have been down this climate change rabbit hole where I'm like it's all, we're all doomed. We might as well just all just bucking out up in here because our days are numbered, and he definitely made me feel like, okay, all is not lost. Great innovations are being made and he made a wonderful point that we need to know what these innovations are. So if we know what these innovations are, we know what to look for, we know what companies to support. So he is great at giving you a deep dive of what is actually working and why the things that aren't working aren't working. So please stay tuned, because it is chock full of just wonderful little nuggets of information that I think everyone needs right now. Amen.

Speaker 3: 2:24

Amen. And also on the show today, we're going to be make sure to hit our segment Tour stories as well as Halloween edition, as well as our new segments called what is it my?

Speaker 2: 2:38

our newest segment is called the wish factor. Aka, I wish the mother fuck would. So what are your wish factor buttons, what are the things that if somebody just says this one thing or does this one thing, all of your wish factor energy comes through?

Speaker 3: 2:58

Yeah, it's the straw that breaks your back, like you know not only breaks your back, but turns you into a.

Speaker 2: 3:05

Tasmanian devil, Like what's your thing?

Speaker 3: 3:08

Yeah. So if you do, you know, have something like that, make sure to hit us up at info, at slap the powercom. We'll make sure to chop it up on our next show. And but you know, first, as we have started to do around here, there's something that I wanted to kind of chop up it. With everything that's going on in, whether it be, you know, the war in Ukraine, in Israel, things that have been going on, there is a it almost seems like every day I open up the newspaper or something, and there's some kind of hacking, there's some kind of data breach, there's some kind of something where you're like, literally, I was talking yesterday to make yesterday to my mother-in-law and she uses dashlane not to step on dashlane, but I think it's dashlane and then that got hacked.

Speaker 2: 3:49

So well, they just had the one with the 23 and me Right One, and that affected a whole lot of people. And I have to say this is when I have to apologize to my father, ernest Sykes III. I am very, very sorry Because a few years ago I wanted to get him one of those for his birthday 23 of me.

Speaker 2: 4:06

Yeah, I was either going to do that or ancestrycom and my dad was like, absolutely not, because they can access your information. And then the government now has access to your information. I was like, dad, that's ridiculous. Meanwhile, this 23 and me hack. Who did they hack? Mostly us Genazi Jews, just saying.

Speaker 3: 4:24

Yeah, so more than 7 million 23 and me customers were the victims of a data breach. The hackers specifically targeted users of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry and it includes their profile photos, genetic ancestry results, date of birth and geographical location. And you know I mean.

Speaker 2: 4:42

It's given this to me.

Speaker 3: 4:43

Yeah, it's exactly.

Speaker 2: 4:45

It's giving bombastic side-eye. It's giving bombastic side-eye, stroke-eye, like you can't.

Speaker 3: 4:51

Are you serious? And?

Speaker 2: 4:52

also the. It's just such a slap in the face how stupid you think we are. Really.

Speaker 3: 4:59

You targeted 7 million people and look for what the Jewish folks was doing. Come on now. Yeah, it just seems like.

Speaker 2: 5:06

While we in the middle of a Middle Eastern war.

Speaker 3: 5:08

Yeah, but it's funny you said that about your dad and because my dad he comes from, he comes from I won't out him too much, but he definitely comes from gangster-adjacent upbringing. We'll call him carnival-adjacent type individuals. And I remember when I was like dad, I want to do 23 and me and he was like, yeah no, my dad was like absolutely not.

Speaker 2: 5:34

And I was like why not?

Speaker 3: 5:35

And he was like well, you're uncle and let's just leave it at that. And I was like hey man, but now my dad's looking like a fucking soothsayer.

Speaker 2: 5:46

Because basically he was like why are you going to snitch on your own self? That's right Genetically and I was like you know what, I can't be mad at that. That has valid points, clearly.

Speaker 3: 5:55

Sure, apparently yeah, and I can't keep my passwords in a password keeper, because then the password keeper is going to get hacked.

Speaker 2: 6:01

So you know, that's one thing I've never done and I think that I get this from my mother. I have my mom is old, old old school Right down, right down that.

Speaker 3: 6:10

And in pencil yeah, oh, oh, that's my mother. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:14

My mama is. She always writes the passwords down in a code book and she calls it the Code Bible. Yeah, she's like bring me the Code Bible. And I'm like, all right, and so I've adapted that. I still keep a little day planner with all my written Like. I write out all my dates. I've written out all the important phone numbers I need to know, because who remembers the phone number?

Speaker 3: 6:33

Right Now, sure At all.

Speaker 2: 6:34

I don't, I don't At all. So I was like when it goes down, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly the girl's got a calling card and written things yeah.

Speaker 3: 6:43

Hey, I come to understand the benefit of writing things down in so many ways. Like you know, you see me on my and what I do is I'll transfer it. But the writing of it, the writing it down, is definitely a process. I remember hearing Obama say the same thing he does. He writes all his books on yellow pads because it moves at the speed of his brain and he can kind of always go back to the different versions. He keeps stacks of these yellow pads, you know, which is kind of fascinating, but yeah. So what a crazy time we lived in. But I do because it's worth it. Our guest today, dr Keith Wolf. This man actually needs a little bit of a setup. So we were, you and I were talking. The IPCC report just came out and there are nine markers that sort of say and have been kind of going on for a long time with regards to climate that say if all nine of those are ticked, we're just beyond.

Speaker 3: 7:32

We're gonna die, we're gonna die exactly and right now six of the nine are already been ticked and seven and eight are headed in the wrong direction. So it was one of those things where it felt like how do you? There's so many important things to kind of talk about, how did climate somehow become, like you know, down the list? And so we wanted to make it and try and make it something that was really really artful and appealing. And that's where Dr Wolf, as a documentary filmmaker, brings to the table sort of the artistic brain as well as the scientific brain. And but I did want to say I kind of put a couple of things down.

Speaker 3: 8:06

So for Keith, a little bit of setup for him. At present he holds a specialized Endangered Species Act contract position with the US Department of Commerce Ever heard of him? And then also the National Oceagranic atmospheric administration, fisheries, which is, you know, that's a big deal, but in this capacity he's also a member of the West Coast climate team and finally, as a NOAA ambassador, he educates students about the imminent threat and pressing importance of global climate change. He also is recognized for his filmmaking accomplishments. For more than 30 years he and his colleagues have been dedicated to investigative documentary production. Their work includes shedding light on nocturnal shark behavior in the French Polynesian Islands, which we ask them about which is fascinating.

Speaker 3: 8:49

Super fascinating Investigating human-induced ecological stressors on reef systems and lower antilities of the Caribbean Sea, and his expertise extends to studying environmental impacts in marine ecosystems in the US, asia-pacific and, more recently, mexico. But in 1997, he wrote, directed and produced the original documentary Under the Puget Sound, which I was fascinated to learn during our interview that you had seen it and that's how you learned about Keith during college.

Speaker 2: 9:18

Yes, I saw it. In college. I took a seminar on basically the politics behind environmental law because I was a political science major and one of the films that was a requirement was his, and at the time the presidential election was about to happen. So Gore had written his now famous book was still a paper and it was published at Yale, and so you could go into the Beinecke Library and read excerpts of the paper that were available. You could do it there and at the law library, if I'm not mistaken. But at any rate, that film was one of the films that was used and it was specifically done because of the way they shot.

Speaker 2: 10:03

So people know about the Puget Sound and what it does, but people didn't really know it's beauty underneath, and one of the things that he talked about specifically with us was how much that's changed in 25 years, which I found fascinating. But I specifically remember he picked that area because it's so beautiful and unknown and when you know what you're fighting for, you want to fight for it harder. So I think that, especially in our debate of climate change, you can step outside your door and know that it's hotter than it's ever been. The weather is weird. We've got a lot of things happening, but I think that people don't know the behind, why that's happening, and they don't see the beauty that's being destroyed because it's happening. And that's where I think Dr Wolfe really is a pioneer, because he's showing through actual documentation. This is why this is important to protect and this is what's happening to it.

Speaker 3: 11:07

And, contrary to a lot of climate stuff, where it is a lot of bad news, there was a ton of good news in our conversation, so make sure to stick around for that. He's also working on an eight-part series called Oceans that's going to be coming out at the top of next year, as well as a six-part investigative documentary focused on climate change technology and policy solutions. So this man gets up very, very early in the morning, so make sure to stick around and we can kind of take the pick off the fruits off of his tree, because he is a very, very brilliant individual. So stick around for that after the break. And yeah, thank you guys for tuning in.

Speaker 3: 11:42

All right, joining us for the interview today. He has a PhD in environmental engineering doctor. He holds a specialized endangered species act contract position with the US Department of Commerce and the National Oceagrantic and Atmospheric Administration and for us, what caught our eye the most, he's a documentary filmmaker who is kind of a big deal and you're going to find out later the one and only Dr Wolfe. Thank you, dr Keith Wolfe. Thank you for coming on the show today.

Speaker 1: 12:09

Thanks, guys. It's a pleasure to be here with you.

Speaker 3: 12:11

Yes, yes, no, thank you, and I have. So you have. You're working on two different television shows. You have documentary or a documentary work for NOAA. My first question is you must get up very, very early in the morning.

Speaker 2: 12:26

Like when do you sleep? When do you sleep? Yeah, cause I'm tired of reading your biography.

Speaker 1: 12:29

We're all going to sleep when this is over. That's what's going to happen. We'll sleep when this is done.

Speaker 3: 12:35

Well, and I guess my the first thing is what you know, friend of ours, a mutual friend of ours, Ronnie D, was the one who who hooked us up, and I'm so glad he did. But I think what caught our eye the first was you are just you're an incredibly credited documentary filmmaker and your film from 97 that you actually just did a re, a remix of, recently called under the Puget Sound I think, Maya, you're familiar with this.

Speaker 2: 12:59

Well, I knew about this and I was excited because I saw this documentary. In college, at Yale, I took a class called Politics and the Environment and this was one of the films. So I remember it specifically because it was right around the same time that Gore had published some, the first parts of what would that be his you know, very, very famous book on climate change, and so both of those things were required parts of the class.

Speaker 2: 13:31

So, and I did really well in the class, by the way, because I was really interested in the you know, but one of the things that I loved about the documentary was, as a documentarian, I felt that you really captured the beauty of what it meant to go into the Puget Sound, and I think it was the beauty of it that inspired you to want to save it so much more. I think that there's a correlation between making those images so gorgeous and I just remember sitting there, being like, oh, this is so pretty and really being captured by that particular aspect of your film linking. Can you tell us how you were inspired to shoot it in that specific way?

Speaker 1: 14:18

Yeah, absolutely this was. You know Seattle is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, it's just gorgeous. And Puget Sound is the second largest estuary in the United States, second only to Chesapeake Bay. And you know we've got Orca whales playing in front of the Seattle skyline. You've got the fairies crossing Puget Sound and you've got people in wooden row boats and sailboats and you know all kinds of on the water beauty. You look and you see the Olympic mountains behind you. On one side you turn around, mount Rainier is just giant, it's just huge. Right behind you we're in the middle of the Cascades.

Speaker 1: 14:59

And I had I started off as a marine biologist so I spent about 4,000 dives on, you know, underwater under Puget Sound doing work, playing with animals. And then on the side I taught scuba because I wanted to get as many people on the scuba instructor oh, I didn't know that I have a bunch of certifications, that's so cool. Because I didn't want to die underwater, I wanted to be trained well. So I got trained well and then I took people underwater and said take a look at this. And to a person they would come up and their eyes were about as big as saucers and they said I had no idea it's an underwater rainforest. It's like going to another planet, exactly, and it's just gorgeous.

Speaker 1: 15:41

And the premise was Maya too, to just show everyone how beautiful it is and that we have this other world under the water and that you protect what you know. Right, that's the premise. And then we did the 1997 version and we said guess what? Over 25 years we have lost all kinds of animals. There are now 23 species listed on the Endangered Species Act and all their critical habitat there are four in 1997. We've lost some incredible animals and beauty down there and it's akin to what's happening in Florida and the coral reefs and all over the world.

Speaker 2: 16:22

And Australia as well.

Speaker 1: 16:23

So the 1997 version was a wake up call and then a different lens. So we're going to show the good part again, but for the first 20 minutes Amanda Gorman does a beautiful poem for us and we show the facts and figures, we tell the truth and we say basically, over the last 25 years Puget Sound has been devastated.

Speaker 2: 16:47

And it just took 25 years. That's a part that's so alarming. I think that people need to make the correlation between like this wasn't a hundred years later, this is 25 years, that's not.

Speaker 3: 17:02

You know, they were like wow, just in the six months that there was the pandemic lockdown. No-transcript.

Speaker 2: 17:09

How much it bounced back. How much it bounced back when we were like, oh, when we it's almost like humans are a virus and like once the virus was dormant.

Speaker 3: 17:16

They were like yeah, we good. Wait a minute, maya. So what you're saying it's almost like humans have an influence on the climate, I mean. But that's my question is you know, for us as entertainers and yourself as a filmmaker, how do you balance the gravity, the heft of the weight of the moment with also making it entertaining and try to catch people's eyes in this sort of TikTok, day and age?

Speaker 1: 17:48

Yeah, it's a trick that we have to do, we have to work and basically we do an arc of the story approach and throughout each episode there's seven episodes in oceans, the new documentary coming out and innovations that will quickly follow. That's right.

Speaker 3: 18:04

So you have two series, two series that are coming out right Oceans and innovations. That's awesome yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:11

And you know the arc of the story is that. Here's the hard truths and some of this stuff is just gut punching. Yeah, and it's. The threat and urgency of climate change is absolute. We've talked a little bit about in the past, about ecological tipping points, yeah, and you mentioned, you know, the fact that it's punctuated equilibrium. You know it's a thing that was developed a long time ago, a theory that said evolution doesn't happen gradually, it happens quickly, in fits and starts, and so natural selection and those types of things punctuated equilibrium. What we've experienced with climate change is that for about the last 50 to 100 plus years maybe, we've had these impacts and we've been building and building and now we've tipped over. Normally, things are on a knife edge and I go back and forth and that's the way things are supposed to happen. That's part of the Earth's dynamic processes, yeah, but climate change we just pushed and pushed and pushed too far. Oceans is a great character, because the oceans absorb 90 plus percent of the heat held in by greenhouse gases, and that's a good thing because they mediate. The ocean mediates. Oceans are a big place. Yeah, you can actually go on Google Earth and if you turn the earth at just the right angle, you can see just ocean. So you have a little bit of Australia down in one corner, a little bit of Alaska up in the other, but you could barely see it. It's all ocean. That's just the Pacific, yeah yeah. So we do it through beauty, through showing the beautiful parts of the ocean and the beautiful parts of the world that are threatened. And then we talk about hope and solutions through the arc of every episodes and through the series. We end with solutions and hope every time, and innovations is about that. Innovations is the hard hitting. Okay, here's the real thing about carbon capture and sequestration. There's the real deal about geothermal and how all these things will come together.

Speaker 1: 20:16

And then we really do talk a lot about the youth and the next generation. And there's something that kind of struck me that someone said to me recently was you know, we were talking to a large group and talking about the kids, and I've got a couple hundred kids that we teach and we teach them climate change and the whole thing. And they, you know, we said we left you with this. We did this. You know, I'm from a generation. We did this. We had this period of inaction where we should have been doing a lot of things and we didn't, and so we apologize. And then we empower this youth generation and provide them the information, the technology, the understanding and push them forward so that they will, as decision makers, make much better decisions than we do. Yeah, but what someone said to me was well, wait a minute, this is happening to me too. Right, my generation. Yeah, and that's true, because if you want to experience climate change now.

Speaker 1: 21:17

you know we're not going to be a big deal Climate change now in its extreme. Just go open your door and walk outside. Just go to Miami.

Speaker 2: 21:24

Right Before I go.

Speaker 3: 21:26

Just go to Miami, you're right.

Speaker 2: 21:28

She's still here.

Speaker 3: 21:29

Yeah, Well, exactly Because, speaking of 50 years, I mean what's your real? I mean, this is something where I saw an article in Rolling Stone a while back it was maybe 10 years ago or whatever. Where it was it was, it was geo engineers or structural engineers that were saying, okay, look, you had hurricane that went through New Orleans and Louisiana and we can redo the dams and we can. We can do a lot of stuff and we could put a U around Manhattan, but we can't do anything about Miami because it's a bear. It's only been a city for 120 years. It's built on limerock and that's why, during a perfectly clear day, it floods three feet. And then it's rising seas to the east and rising swamps, if you will, or encroaching swamps, if you will, from the west.

Speaker 3: 22:17

And you know, I feel like that shortening of the time frame. Right, it used to be when Al Gore was a turn. It was like, if you're putting figures out there that are for 2100, our generation is kind of like, okay, well, we'll be dead, We'll be dead, Make sure my stock portfolio stays up, but now you have children that are like yo, we're going to be alive in 2050 and this stuff is looking bad. What's your? What's your, you know, on pulling the alarm. I know that with climate report recently, it was, you know, almost eight of the last nine, eight of the nine markers we've failed at. You know, right now, on what climate climate is set and how do you keep? How do you, you know, keep the kids sort of understanding the imperative nature of it all?

Speaker 2: 23:00

How do you also keep them not like extraordinarily angry?

Speaker 1: 23:03

Yeah pissed off. Yeah, climate anxiety is a big deal, it's a real thing, and I had one student that had to leave the classroom one day when we're talking about Bangladesh and the war and famine that's already happening and the mass migrations. But you referred to the IPCC report, the sixth report, that's the international panel on climate change, and this is part of the Paris Accords that were agreement, that were ratified by 196 countries, and so we've made significant steps forward in organizing ourselves around climate change. But if you read the IPCC reports and you know you have the synthesis, you've seen it, it's code red. Yeah, and you know.

Speaker 1: 23:47

From a timeline standpoint, rick, I agree, the story isn't a good story if you say, well, in 2100, if you lead with that, you automatically lose your audience. Yeah, so we talk about 2050. Yeah, now we know we won't get there by 2050. But in, in fact, in innovations, the very first episode, we forecast and we start, we open scene one, act one in 2050. And we ask ourselves what have? Where are we now? What have we done and what changes have we made? And we can make significant changes and we can get that rock up the hill. Sisyphus is pushing pretty hard right now. Yeah, so we've got a lot of people pushing on the rock, doing the right things. Not enough by any measure, yeah, and we're not going to get that rock to the top by 2050, but we better have made some significant progress. Or we talk about different things. We don't talk about threat and urgency anymore. We talk about a sixth mass extinction. And history is history teaches us if we listen and if we read and we pay attention.

Speaker 2: 24:58

You know what's so interesting in saying when we lead with 2021, we lose half the audience. Why that didn't used to be the case. It used to be the internet that you thought of, but you'd used to think of the generations. Yeah, you know. Even you know making legacy that used to be a thing that we did. When did that start? You think the internet is what stopped it.

Speaker 3: 25:22

Well, I think the our brains are broken in it from a attention deficit standpoint, and so or maybe too much information. Yeah, I mean I don't know, I just.

Speaker 2: 25:33

I just even remember a time when my grandparents said I'm working hard to build this legacy, so it's not just for my kids, it's for my kids, kids. And I just wonder when our brain stopped doing that.

Speaker 3: 25:48

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 25:49

I mean, yeah, I don't think that we have to talk about 2100. I think that it's good context because of the you know, here's the science part about this Because of the gas laws and because of the rate of emissions that we're continuing to put and we're still in the upswing, yeah, and the gases, the seven gases that make up the greenhouse effect, they're gonna stay there a long time, even if we just shut everything down and that's just physics. So, but again, if we aren't somewhere by 2050, if we cannot look back and say we have really moved ourselves, it's kind of like the story of solar power and storage and wind Electric power. 10 years ago it was like, nah, no way. Now the entire world is solar and is moving in that direction. In fact, I think it was by 2040, 93% of the countries are gonna have solar and it will be the cheapest energy on the planet.

Speaker 2: 26:45

It makes so much sense. The thing about some of this is that some of it makes so much sense and is so cost effective. You have to really look at who's behind kiboshing it and the why's. But the one thing that gives me any kind of hope at all is the technological advances that we've made and it seems like technology is what's gonna win this fight for us.

Speaker 2: 27:09

So, okay, let's just start afresh. Can you break down some of the new emerging technology and how it's gonna work and how it will be effective in this particular fight? Because I feel like we could give you a lot of labels and stuff, but Chao, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 27:31

I don't want to be like the.

Speaker 2: 27:32

APCT phone.

Speaker 3: 27:33

Yeah, exactly, if he looked at good, because the scrub of the ocean.

Speaker 2: 27:37

I don't want to be her when there's a doctor in the house, that's right, we're musicians.

Speaker 3: 27:41

We don't know nothing Break it down.

Speaker 1: 27:43

I know how to clap on to and for Exactly Now. We're good and I say this a lot and it's true is that we know what to do and we have a good whack of the technology in place. So let me give you three or four quick ones that are really great and really gonna help us. And it's not planting trees, it's stopping cutting down trees number one in the Amazon. We can't do that.

Speaker 1: 28:09

There's a great documentary, my friends, kiss the Ground at Big Mount Ranch. They're in California and they just came out with their sequel called Common Ground, and it's basically regenerative agriculture. And if you don't till and you don't have to deal deep till your land, you can grow a lot better crops, you have a much higher profit side and you actually have what's called soil. You don't have dirt. Dirt is dead. There's nothing alive in dirt, in soil. It's full, it's like our gut. It's full of great microbes doing all the right things and they're capturing and sequestering carbon out of the atmosphere. Yeah, so that's one. Another one is that's great is you know, there's hydrogen, there's nuclear and nuclear safe the ones at Bill Gates are working on. And here and I'm in Oregon, I'm in Portland, beautiful Portland, oregon, beautiful Oregon. South of me, down in Eugene there's a company that's building small nuclear plants that power small cities and they use, you know, molten sodium instead of water and it works and they're safe. We don't have to think about Fugima or whatever. It is yeah, the big one there.

Speaker 1: 29:28

Or the Hanford. You know I grew up around the Hanford Reach.

Speaker 3: 29:33

And desalination plants and things like that. Are they getting more efficient? The natural?

Speaker 1: 29:37

parts. Yeah, the natural parts are really good. And then think about blue carbon. Blue carbon is a really good way to get into this discussion. That is, the salt marshes, the near shore and shallow parts of the ocean, so mangroves, marshes. They absorb hundreds of hundreds of times more carbon than does a tree or even soils.

Speaker 1: 30:02

So, blue carbon and it creates what's called and we're also, you know, the other blue thing we use when we're talking about the blues. We're talking about blue economy. That we know. And these things are, all you know, helping everyone's economy. Yeah, I'll give you one more. That's really great. It's a geothermal. If you drill down Six miles into the earth and it doesn't matter where you are on the earth, you hit hot granite and that's all you need. So you take all the coal plants you don't have to tear them down, you just convert them to steam and you Drill down six miles and you hit that granite and you've got a. It's like the Sun, you know. You've got a free source of energy. It's not gonna go away. You know, as long as the earth's here, as long as the Sun, as long as we're, you know, doing our trip around the Sun, we're good. And as long as the planets, you know, holding together, then we're. We have the Geothermal and the only challenge right now they're working on is how to drill down that far.

Speaker 1: 31:03

Wow, I can drill and it's, and we're close, we're not that far away.

Speaker 3: 31:08

I also. I I remember seeing something I think it was a vice piece or something like that, where Everybody kind of at this point knows about the great Pacific plastic patch, but there was a. There was a kid or a group of kids. I think I want to say Project a project.

Speaker 3: 31:22

I could be messing this up, but they were out of like Denmark or something and they had figured a way to basically start almost Netting up the micro plastics, and part of that is where they're too small of particles, but they were getting, to a certain degree, a lot of the plastic out of there in a in an innovative way. Is that? Is that real too, or is that fake?

Speaker 1: 31:41

news. Yeah, it's a huge challenge and because in the tide of climate change is its petroleum.

Speaker 2: 31:46

Yeah, Basement aerials.

Speaker 1: 31:48

Yeah, and I just looked today at the science behind the garbage patches and I looked at where they all are, and there are thousands of them around the world.

Speaker 2: 32:00

Yes, Everywhere the one.

Speaker 1: 32:03

The two in the Pacific, one near Australia, one near great, near right off the California coast are the size of Texas, wow. And so we've got a problem. And if we Convert and if we do energy change and we move off of fossil fuels, then we're gonna solve that plastics problem too.

Speaker 3: 32:23

But late stage capitalism with you know I even saw today entered when you got oil companies buying up other oil companies. The only reason you're gonna spend that much for another oil company is if you actually think you can still deal, oh yeah you're trying to buy. You know, and, and even then, plastic is the oil and gas industries. We learned from a previous episode we did that's their backup plan.

Speaker 1: 32:45

So it's almost like, yeah, you got it, is it or something?

Speaker 3: 32:48

know why we?

Speaker 1: 32:49

know why CEOs are still paid. Yeah, you know the way they're paid, and they're paid for immediate results. This is, I think, the last gasp yeah that we're going through. I think that we have Informed the. You know, we're now more climate literate than we ever have been. We're not all the way there, yeah, and that's what these up. That's why we're doing seven episodes in oceans. Sure, we're not gonna do one. You can't do sound by no, no, no, no, no. And this is such a nuanced idea.

Speaker 2: 33:19

I've Read and went to a lecture by dr Jerry diamond on the book collapse. I don't know if you're familiar with that work.

Speaker 2: 33:27

Yeah but his whole platform in that book is that he profiles Societies and looks at how societies collapsed, and he has found that in pretty much every example that he looked at there are five societal elements that contribute to a society's collapse and at least two of them, and for a Society to collapse you need two of these factors and in every case One of them was preventable.

Speaker 2: 33:56

One of these things was prevent.

Speaker 2: 33:58

One of the factors and and the factors are some of them Obviously you can't deal, you can't change, like they were a Lack of a natural resource, an act of God or you know an act or natural disaster, but then a lot of them were war, pestilence, famine, right, and those are preventable things and it all.

Speaker 2: 34:17

And in examples, yes, but in all of those elements it showed how the warmongering Aspects of the society led to the pestilence, or it led to the famine, or it led to the lack of the natural resource, or the over farming of this led to the pestilence and led to the famine. So it was just so interesting to look at that book because he also shows examples of societies that chose to succeed and they all had to employ drastic measures that usually were a bit fatalistic, like had Harsh bottom lines. It almost seems like in all the examples from that book. If you look at just the and he profiled Societies from over 4,000 years. It seems like at the bottom line, if you don't have harsh penalties to employ the change, the change doesn't happen.

Speaker 2: 35:11

Yeah but we're a society that anything that's deemed a harsh penalty, save taking away abortion rights, isn't taken seriously. So I wonder how do we change the attitude of no, you're really gonna have to have the government go in and change this especially emerge.

Speaker 3: 35:28

I would imagine emerging tech technologies inside new, new markets and new Like, for example, india, in a lot of ways is kind of like what you know. If they're there, hey we, we didn't do a lot of this stuff and now you're asking us to sort of shoulder the burden. It's almost like this is a Africa to Africa, 100%.

Speaker 2: 35:45

This is a global problem and I, we didn't cause, and I see they point.

Speaker 3: 35:50

Yeah, exactly from Africa's perspective.

Speaker 2: 35:52

Yeah, all of these people. I see their point. If they didn't cause this, why are they being asked to Not only shoulder the burden, but do it also financially? Yeah, I mean, it seems like if this is our mess and we're asking this other country to shoulder a huge burden of it, the least we could do is, you know, pick up the tab exactly do some penalties.

Speaker 3: 36:15

I mean, is that something you find? Because even with the inflation reduction act, I feel like that's the greatest move we as a country is may have made towards a lot of these problems and at the same time, it's I, you know, I've heard it's, it's, it's something, but it is way, way, way far away, far away From what we need. Yeah are you optimistic in that respect that we can kind of pull it together?

Speaker 1: 36:37

Yeah, I'm optimistic, I am Rick, and because it's the largest thing we've done and you know we've done, we've, we've we can walk away from denialism now. We don't have to try and convince someone who's just gonna deny. We don't have to because we're in the majority. We're not the minority any longer.

Speaker 3: 36:55

I'm sorry. I'm sorry, doctor, have you heard of the electoral college?

Speaker 1: 37:02

I'm sorry.

Speaker 3: 37:03

That's minority rule, my man.

Speaker 1: 37:05

Yeah, climate change is like COVID in a lot of ways, because it affects everybody everywhere, yeah, same time. Yeah, there's different things that happen. You may burn in a wildfire. You may lose your entire Island. You know, half of your culture and your island, like Lahaina, or your, your city's paradise in California yeah, the Pacific Northwest.

Speaker 2: 37:25

You may live in New.

Speaker 1: 37:26

York City and have to breathe that smoke? Yeah, you know that woke a lot of people up 118 million people for weeks. Yeah, and breathing that smoke is Really toxic. Yeah, it's really bad for you.

Speaker 3: 37:39

Yeah, it's gonna like this very hard micro plastics.

Speaker 1: 37:43

Microplastics are in our bloodstream and they're in fetal yeah streams as well. They're so prevalent. So I'm hopeful that you know. We've the Paris Accord and in about a week, the COP the convening of the parties begins. 70,000 people attend those that's the UN, united Nations organization around the Paris Agreement and 70,000 people go and that means there's another 50,000 people behind this scene staffing this and working it and making it happen.

Speaker 1: 38:12

And there's a couple thousand scientists doing the work on the island Make it happen. And there's a couple thousand scientists doing the work on the IPCC reports. So we're pointed in the right direction. We've taken a deep breath and a deep knee bend and said, okay, and it. I think the the reality that hit us the last couple of years, with the earth's hottest temperatures and people dying yeah at that. You know people, you know it's literally dying from heat exhaustion and floods and and all these things that it's okay, time to really ramp up, yeah, and so I think we are in that generation and we're bringing the next generation along as quickly as possible to make sure that they understand the Electoral College, yeah, and they make the right decisions.

Speaker 3: 38:57

Yes, sir, and they will yes, yes, well, we, we cannot thank you enough for your work and your time and we're gonna make sure to put all of your information about both the you know. Every time we get an update on when the series are gonna be coming out, we'll do our best to lift that up. Thank you very much, guys. Yeah, no one would be helpful.

Speaker 1: 39:18

Yeah we want to reach 38 million people. We're gonna do this in seven languages. Hey, that's our goal. That's right. And I'll leave you with this. Thing is that I say to the kids we can change climate change. In fact, I say it to everybody and they come back at me rightfully so after they've gone through these AP courses that we give and they say we Will change climate change and then what's going to happen in a couple of years?

Speaker 1: 39:43

I think we're gonna be saying and I'm gonna get, I'm gonna make the t-shirts, I think they can change climate change. We will, yeah, change climate change. And the back side is gonna say we are Changing climate change. So I'm hopeful.

Speaker 3: 39:55

Let's do it, let's do a co-lab and we can put the slap to power with the hand and the heart on it. Because, you know, sometimes you do need some tough love and so You're. Thank you again so much for leading the way. We are honored to have you on and appreciate and you know, don't be a stranger, make sure to keep us informed on everything you got going on. We'll do our best to lift it up.

Speaker 2: 40:14

Also, please let us know Ocean's debuts, because we would love to profile you again. Yeah and really delve into how we can distribute it to the masses, like what's the best platform to see it on. Once that's all actualized, we would love to be a part of the platform that helps get to the 38 million people.

Speaker 1: 40:34

Yeah, the new trailer is out about a week and a half. The entire package is together. We're meeting with investors right now. I love it, and so here we go.

Speaker 2: 40:44

And also future investors. Like, if you look in, if you want to just drop a cute million tax deductible, that's right. Hollatch, oh boy, hollatch oh boy, keith.

Speaker 3: 40:54

Thank you, dr Wolfe, we appreciate it. We'll be talking to you soon.

Speaker 2: 40:56

Thank you.

Speaker 3: 40:57

Thanks, bye, all right, I mean, that was that really was. I love being able to leave a conversation like that and feel sort of inspired, and that's the point.

Speaker 2: 41:09

And I also love that Dr Wolfe gives me Michael McDonald vibes.

Speaker 3: 41:14

Loki.

Speaker 2: 41:15

So, like, don't you want to know about, like your climate change from the dude who's saying what a fool believes?

Speaker 1: 41:20

I mean.

Speaker 2: 41:21

I feel like because on your brother exactly.

Speaker 3: 41:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, definitely. Dr Keith got that sort of Michael McDonald kind of smoothing and he's got a great microphone on his end, so he's used to doing these things.

Speaker 2: 41:33

No, he was dialed in. He had, like, all the microphones. Did you see his studio? Totally, I was like I'm jelly.

Speaker 3: 41:38

I'm jelly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So before we get out of here, Maya, do you have a tour of story?

Speaker 2: 41:43

for us today? Of course I do. Yes, you absolutely know that I do, and I have one with my newest boss that I can tell you, because even though he's a wonderful boss, he didn't make me sign lots of NDAs. So I can tell you that his name is Billy Idol.

Speaker 3: 41:56

Never heard of him.

Speaker 2: 41:57

Yeah, he's pretty awesome and we're currently actually doing our residency at the cause of politics, so we'll be doing that through October.

Speaker 2: 42:05

But, one of the tour horror stories that I have or my tour story, if you will happened at this year at Cruel World. So, and this wasn't anybody's fault really, but we played with Billy Idol and there was an electrical storm. So literally right after he's saying rebel yell, there was a huge crack of lightning and we had to leave, like we had to evacuate and flee. I'm not even kidding, we had to. Like the entire festival got shut down because they were like okay if any of the lightning strikes a power line or whatever. So we literally get off and he's like thank you, good night. And we hear like one of the other bands start and then all of a sudden we hear this loud evacuation order and it's like sirens and it's an outdoor festival and literally you just see huge, like God was just throwing down lightning balls, like here you go here, you go here you go.

Speaker 2: 42:59

So we're literally scrambling to get out of there and the other backup singer had to go to another event in Hollywood. Nobody can pick us up. We got dropped off there because there wasn't enough space for vehicles so we had to meet at access points and then get driven there. So we had to find the access vehicle in the dark because they cut all of the power because everything was going to be an electrical storm so they couldn't have anything, any live power right. So we're in the dark, it starts to rain. We're like running through like crowds and stuff, and shout out to Kent and Lawrence from Billy Eidle's team because Kent just like gangstered us into a vehicle. We were telling all the rest of the band, like, grab your stuff, let's go, let's just walk to transport. Because we were trying to wait at the access vehicle point and we realized there was no way they'd find us. So we decided to walk as a unit all the way to where we knew our cars were.

Speaker 2: 43:54

But they only let four vehicles come in. One was the one that took the entire band, the other one was the one that took the backup singers right, and then the other two belong to Billy Eidle. So they got Billy Eidle and his family and that kind of stuff out and then we rode out with Kent and Kent wrote us out on some guerrilla Indiana Jones style over the river and through the woods until we got out and we got on the freeway and he got us to Hollywood and then I just Ubered home from Hollywood. But there was no way. Had he not been there we would have been completely screwed. And it's one of those things where, if those are just acts of God, you don't know. You can't predict anything like that. But one of the things that will save you if you're in that moment is great management from who you're working with.

Speaker 2: 44:34

So shout out to Billy Eidle and his entire team because, they really. They save the day on that one Amen.

Speaker 3: 44:41

Touring is such a variable thing. If you have any of our friends out there, if you've got any kind of tourist stories, go ahead and email us at info at SlapThePowercom, because we love them. I've got tourist stories for days, so make sure to check in Next. We're saving them for each episode.

Speaker 2: 44:59

It's going to be our first coffee table book.

Speaker 3: 45:01

Let's keep it a buck, we're going to be like Slap the Power presents tourist stories.

Speaker 2: 45:05

The coffee table book and we're just going to have pictures. We're going to change the names so we don't get sued.

Speaker 3: 45:10

That's right. That's right. And before we get out of here in our newest segment and it's called I Wish a Motherfucker Would.

Speaker 2: 45:18

Did you have anything that you wish a motherfucker would do?

Speaker 3: 45:20

I do, I do so I'm sort of a. Los Angeles is my favorite city and everybody knows that. Um, and you know, like a lot of places, if I was going to be homeless, I would be. I would probably, uh, was experiencing homelessness the unhoused the unhousedi would. I would be doing it in los angeles because it's just a beautiful place the weather.

Speaker 3: 45:42

But it's also the home of. You know, we we've done a lot of porn here in our, in our city are good, you know, shout out to van eyes and uh, you know, we kind of were the heaven of, or the home of, porn for so long outside los angeles, and san fernando valley was in front of the center valley.

Speaker 3: 45:57

So I'm you know I'm taking my girl has a session in the middle of hollywood. We, uh, that were one car family right now because her car got stolen, you know, to check. Its the whole long thing. So I'm driving her, she's about to get out, there's a dude who's standing in front of the door that she needs to go into it, the studio I'm dropping off at hollywood and he's jerking off in front of the door corseus you're just sitting there, just you know, but pleasuring himself and everything, and so she's, you know she's like well, I can you know,

Speaker 3: 46:26

go in and I don't want you to get in a fight. And I was like I wish a mother would come at me, because none of us are. I walked her to the door and the guy stops kind of playing with himself inside his pants and then, you know, she goes to kind of get in the door and the guys like hey, hey, do you know where I can get a job in the porn industry? And I'm thinking of myself.

Speaker 3: 46:45

This man is definitely tweaked on the sexual side of whatever neurons he got, that was. You know, he's over sexualized, whatever. And I was like no, I don't, bro, he's like, he's like I need a job. You know I'm looking for a job in the porn industry. And I was like, uh, okay, man, he sticks his hand out to shake, like put it out there, yeah, yeah. And I'm like no, bro. And so you know I in case he was gonna do anything, my girl, anything like that. I was like I was sort of ready to go at it, but luckily it didn't go down. So you know, I didn't have to fuck around to find out.

Speaker 2: 47:20

Wait, I just want to just briefly put a pin in the audacity of this man. Yeah, like that went from. Okay, I know that some people were. You know, some people that are experiencing um homelessness at this moment are also not dealing with. You know, like they're a couple taco short of a combination and it sounds like my, my man's was was on that train yeah but the actual audacity of you two have just had your hand in your nether region and be like hi how you doing.

Speaker 3: 47:52

Yeah, nah, playa. No, that's not how it goes down, wouldn't you?

Speaker 2: 47:57

want to be jirking off at the avian awards, like right wants to go to source my bro. Like know your audience, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 48:04

Read the room bra so if you've got any wish, if you've got something that you're like, you know no no, no what is your wish factor?

Speaker 3: 48:11

where's the line? Make sure to hit us up, hit us up in the comments, hit us up at info at slap the power dot com, and that's it for us this week, so we will see you next week. Thank you guys for tuning in and, once again, we can't do this without you. We've definitely, uh, we've been growing and we've been adding a lot of people to our community here, and so we couldn't appreciate it enough.

Speaker 2: 48:30

Thank you guys and we really want to specifically thank all of our new subscribers yeah we are growing because people are subscribing and people are tuning in to us, so thank you to all of our new subscribers. Thank you to our subscribers that have been riding with us from day one and sharing this information, because you're also the reason why we're getting new subscribers.

Speaker 2: 48:51

So we are your community based show. We are trying to bring information to the table that is relevant to not just our communities but the communities at large, and that means that this is your programming too. So thank you for heeding that call, thank you for being involved and know that we are working tirelessly to make sure that we have the content that you are saying you want to see that's right, amen, so we'll see you guys next week, and thanks again bye, keep slapping on, boom, that's it bye.

Speaker 2: 49:24

Slap the power is written and produced by rick barrio dill and mya sykes. Associate producer, brie courie, audio and visual engineering and studio facilities provided by slap studios, la with distribution through our collective home for social progress in art, slap the network. If you have any ideas for a show you want to hear or see, or if you would like to be a guest artist on our show, please email us at info at slapthepowercom.