The Space In Between Podcast

What You Should Know About Climate Change with Aimée Christensen

• Leigh Morgan • Season 2 • Episode 10

Share episode

On this week’s episode of The Space In Between, Leigh sat down with Aimée Christensen — a longtime and noted climate leader, bridge-builder, and someone whose roots run deep in both global halls of power and the soils of Idaho, her beloved home state. With active retrenchment by the current administration in the fight against global warming in full swing, this episode is key for anyone wanting the 'real story' on what is, and is not happening, on climate change. My conversation with Aimée is rich with wisdom, clarity, and the kind of insight that comes only from decades of doing work and bringing people together across divides on this evocative issue.

Support the show

Hello and welcome to the. Space in between podcast. I'm your host Lee Morgan. Again, this podcast is for listeners who are fed up. Up with the hyperpolarized nature of the world today. And who crave. Craves spaces where current events can be discussed in construct. enlightening and delightful ways. Let's get.

Leigh Morgan:

Hello friends and welcome to the Space In Between Podcast. Today we turn our attention to one of the most urgent and defining challenges of our time, climate change. The science is clear. We are living through a moment of profound disruption driven by human choices and behaviors. Extreme weather, rising sea levels and ecosystem collapse are no longer distant warnings. It's a reality now, and it's going to get worse unless things change fast. Climate change poses existential threats to our beautiful planet and unfortunately to the future of humanity. So with that heaviness, I do wanna say that in the face of the crisis, we are also finding incredible courage, innovation, resilience, and wisdom about how to come together during polarizing times and fine solutions. And this is true even despite the current administration's rollback of climate protections and the country's increasing isolation on the world stage. I. In fact, countless individuals, communities and organizations are doubling down. We're seeing this in the private and public sectors with young people, with entrepreneurs, folks working tirelessly to protect our most vulnerable ecosystems and communities and build more sustainable ways of living. I'm really excited to welcome my esteemed guest today, Aimee Christensen, who will help us have an honest, candid look at what is going well, what isn't, and how all of us can impact change and do so even with folks who may not share our views. A little bit about Aimee before we begin. She is a kindhearted and effective force for good, and she brings three decades of climate leadership in policy, law, investment. Philanthropy and business. She's had roles in the White House at the US Department of Energy, the World Bank, and also at Google. She's done a few small things like negotiating the first US bilateral and regional climate agreements, and she is a much sought after speaker, convener and influencer at climate conferences around the world. She is currently CEO of Christensen Global, a strategic advisory firm And lastly, she's also very much rooted in her hometown of Sun Valley, Idaho, In that community. She works across the political spectrum on local initiatives that address sustainable farming practices. Aimee. Welcome to the Space in Between podcast.

Aimée Christensen:

Thank you so much, Lee. It is wonderful to be here. Really so excited to talk with you.

Leigh Morgan:

Well, thanks for making time and I'll start by sharing with listeners a story that you told me when we first met. Back in 1992. You and some other young activists sought out the head of the US Congressional Delegation at the Rio Earth Summit. That was one of the first really big convenings about climate. And the head of that delegation was then Senator Al Gore. So a little bit of a big wig. He cared about climate way back in the day, and apparently you basically advocated directly to him to get more young people's voices on the main stage to share their call to action. And that really struck me. I thought, ah, this woman she's something. So, I mean, I love that story, but So my question for you is, where does that courage and passion come from?

Aimée Christensen:

You know, it comes from. Being raised by two incredible parents, one of whom, my mom is the naturalist Nature educator, and I grew up in the Jerry Pack on her back from the youngest age when she was a volunteer docent. Audubon Canyon Ranch in Belinas, California, when we were on Sierra Club trips in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, and I was listening to her stories about this incredible nature, and my father was a fighter for justice. That's who he was. It wasn't his job. His job was, he was a self-made carpenter builder, developer, but the right kind of developer He was on the Marin County. Conservation League board at a time when he was the developer fighting the, wetlands infill, fighting strip malls. And he and a couple of other, men at the time fought to protect the golden hilltops of Marin from being developed. So I was raised by someone who understood and cared for and taught about nature and another person who was fighting for what was right. And so I knew my whole life that I would wanna grow up to fight for and protect nature.

Leigh Morgan:

That's an inspiring story. Well, a lot of people may share that passion. What stands out to me is your verb and your confidence to actually go up to, this senator and say, Hey, dude, uh, we need, we need to expand the voices here. I mean, where does that exactly?

Aimée Christensen:

where it came from that came from the collective. So I had been at the Rio Earth Summit as a volunteer intern working to help summarize all the non-governmental treaties that were being negotiated Just as things were kicking off, I went to the youth tent to check out what other young people were doing. Met up with all these international youth leaders, including some folks may know Danny Kennedy, who's just a legend in the climate and clean energy space. Australian, we met there in 92 as young activists, but of us from the United States, we organized ourselves. We named ourselves, US Youth at Rio, and we wrote a statement and we stayed up, in my hotel room writing this statement. And I was the one who ended up finishing it off. So they said, Aimee, let's do a press release. Let's have you read this statement. Let's try to ask Al Gore to let you introduce him when he's speaking. And I felt a responsibility. So when I showed up ready to go dressed up scrunchie in my hair, I look at the photos and I laugh. It's so cute. I arrive and my friends say, I am sorry. They said, no, he doesn't have time. They cut his time on stage. So said, well, wait a minute. So I walked. When he got there, I walked up to him very nicely and I had my speech printed in my hands and just asked him directly if I could just have five minutes to, share our statement. And we were all there, all about 30 of us young Americans. And he looked at it and he looked at me and I told him what it said. and he said, it looks like it's way more than five minutes. I said, no, I've timed it three times and it's four and a half.

Leigh Morgan:

I love that. I love that.

Aimée Christensen:

And

Leigh Morgan:

not an excuse. I know.

Aimée Christensen:

no, no, exactly. And he said, he looked at me, he is like, can you make it three and a half? And I said, yes. And I, I cut out the most radical paragraph and he got on stage and he is like, I'm gonna give up a few stage, some stage times. These young Americans, I don't really know what they're gonna say because he wasn't quite sure. You know, he didn't wanna necessarily give an endorsement, but we did it. And we got a standing ovation. And he came back on the stage and he, he talked about young people seeing what's possible in the world and how we can see things that adults can't see. The people who cracked through the Berlin Wall were young people, and it was just such a powerful moment of support from this leader.

Leigh Morgan:

I love that story. It's giving me chills. I should say for listeners, Aimee and I have been at a number of convenings together and I recall one, I think it was in 2022 in New York. It was a TED gathering around climate, and Al Gore was there and the two of you still have an easy affection with each other. So that, was neat, to see both, both very passionate.. And so one of the things I often do on the podcast when we have topics like climate or immigration or criminal justice or what have you, I try to level set, around terms and what's actually happening So we have a common understanding. And I'd like to do that with you and ask you a few things about climate change. And particularly can you describe the main ways that. Communities are addressing global warming. For example, there's some phrases such as adaptation and mitigation. Can you tell us what that means

Aimée Christensen:

sure. When people talk about climate change or global warming, they're talking about the manmade anthropogenic emissions that are on top of the natural cycling of our planet. so the, yep. Manmade emissions. So what we've done by digging up oil and gas and coal by deforesting, by tearing up our soils and releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Carbon in the form of carbon dioxide, which just comes out of our energy plants, methane, which comes out from natural gas. Natural gas is pure methane, and then also from animals. So when animals. Fart burp their poop. That's methane. Which has over 80 times the global warming impact of carbon dioxide. So our energy sector activities of humans and then of our food and agriculture related activities of humans, have added to the atmosphere. This incremental difference the genic emissions have made, have led to this radical shift in trajectory for our planet as far as our state of warming. So here we are. What do we need to do? We need to get ourselves back into right relation with the planet. And that. Is starting with climate change. We need to reduce our emissions. So that's mitigation. How do we mitigate and reduce emissions? we also need to sequester more emissions by

Leigh Morgan:

right.

Aimée Christensen:

those soils, by pulling them into forests and mangroves and seaweed and kelp, which are incredible powers, to restore our planetary balance with our

Leigh Morgan:

Yeah.

Aimée Christensen:

atmosphere. And then we need to adapt, uh, and be resilient. So I remember John Holden, who was President Obama's climate science advisor,

Leigh Morgan:

Yeah.

Aimée Christensen:

know, Nobel Award-winning scientist. When I was at Google, we were working on our first climate strategy, and he was such an inspiration. raised his voice as a scientist, one of the first to do so. And he said. need to mitigate, you need to sequester, and you need to adapt. And then there's suffering. So it's like the more you mitigate, reduce the

Leigh Morgan:

Ah,

Aimée Christensen:

the more

Leigh Morgan:

great.

Aimée Christensen:

and absorb it, the less you have to adapt and the less suffering there will be. But it's all an equation

Leigh Morgan:

Hmm.

Aimée Christensen:

reduce the suffering of humans, of all with whom we share the planet. So

Leigh Morgan:

I like that.

Aimée Christensen:

I think about it. And resilience is about building the tools that yes, allow us to adapt to that new warming. But I feel it's a broader term resilience. Um, how do we organize ourselves? How do we, be ready to bounce back? Better is a

Leigh Morgan:

Hmm.

Aimée Christensen:

the Rockefeller Foundation used in its in pioneering support for action, for resilience.

Leigh Morgan:

That is really helpful how you've clarified that. And so I wanna ask you two follow up questions. One is what's happening in the global stage, just historically. I know things have shifted recently. But often there's these large gatherings, some of them are sponsored by the United Nations, the UN. They have a name called Cops, COP, which stands for conference of parties, parties being those who are members at the un, so Nation states. And then happily now we're also finding indigenous peoples who, precede nation states and have their territories and identities and cultures are now, a part of those conversations as well. what do you want listeners to know about the cops that happen and other major gatherings where nation states and indigenous peoples come together to try to find ways to, uh, mitigate and adapt to climate change?

Aimée Christensen:

I think there are two headlines. One in 1992 at that Rio Earth Summit, George HW Bush did sign the Climate Convention.

Leigh Morgan:

Hmm.

Aimée Christensen:

he wasn't signing the biodiversity conventions. That was one of the things we were calling for. But he did sign the climate convention. It was ratified by Congress with that. The Clinton administration came into power, and our job was to help figure out how to implement that commitment we'd made under that Global Climate Convention, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Leigh Morgan:

Okay.

Aimée Christensen:

of that was then to negotiate Kyoto Protocol, that would then provide more of the rules and the targets and the timetables to live up to what the convention called on, which was action to address climate change. since 1992 signed 1995, there was an intergovernmental gathering to get things kicked off, and then the first conference of the parties was held then led to these annual conferences of the parties, like you

Leigh Morgan:

Okay.

Aimée Christensen:

it's the people who've signed, who've ratified the agreement, their parties to the agreement. And just side note, once you've ratified, once you've signed as a former lawyer, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties indicates you cannot operate in contravention of that treaty. So when

Leigh Morgan:

Okay,

Aimée Christensen:

away from a treaty, unless we've unsigned, or removed ourselves from that, we can be challenged legally for that. So the conferences of the parties meet every year. They build the rules, the frameworks for everything from how do we report on the state of our national emissions, what are we counting, how do we count how are we trading carbon, right? That's a

Leigh Morgan:

I see.

Aimée Christensen:

How do we

Leigh Morgan:

Yeah.

Aimée Christensen:

marketplace? So there's that. other point of that is that here we are. We're heading into COP 30

Leigh Morgan:

Okay.

Aimée Christensen:

and the global Greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere is approximately 427 parts per million. And you may have heard the organization three fifty.org. 350 PPM is where people felt like, well, that was probably a more stable place for our atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions

Leigh Morgan:

So three 50 was stable and what is it and what is it now?

Aimée Christensen:

27,

Leigh Morgan:

Okay, that's, that's the headline. That's bad. So

Aimée Christensen:

later of cops. So people would say. What's happened, 30 years. We're still where we are.

Leigh Morgan:

Got it.

Aimée Christensen:

who knows where it would've been without those meetings, without those rules, without that attention and governments have to lead and they have to give the guideposts for businesses to align, for markets to align, and they continue to be doing that.

Leigh Morgan:

I see.

Aimée Christensen:

those annual gatherings are critically important to continue that momentum so we all don't just walk away making effort, even if we're not yet on track for where we need to be.

Leigh Morgan:

I like how you said that, which is, we don't like these, statistics related to climate change. That's bad. It poses existential risks to the planet and humanity and biodiversity. But you also said, who knows how bad it could have been had we not had it. And I think that's important because sometimes I hear from more libertarian oriented folks, you know, pro let the market dictate less government, and why do we have the UN anyway? Or, they'll say, see, nothing's really happened. That argument feels a little weak to me. And so we can talk more. I respect that people are looking for ways, but thank you for, lifting up that more nuanced view. I'd like to ask you now about US based efforts I'm aware of some signature legislation from the Biden administration, one of which is called the Inflation Reduction Act. When that was passed it was, broadly acknowledged as landmark legislation. It was a bipartisan effort to pass that act and did a lot to mitigate. Climate change and a lot of the investments were actually targeted. The majority, if I recall correctly, in red states, in states that actually didn't vote for Biden or traditionally don't go for the Democratic nominee at a federal level. Can you describe what the Inflation Reduction Act was and why people thought it was a good bit of legislation, and then we'll talk a little bit about criticism of it.

Aimée Christensen:

Sure. Well, I think your question is directly tied to some of those opinions about let the market work, market is controlled by policies, and the market doesn't value nature. It doesn't value, it doesn't value the health, the, you know, the Chinese, one of the big imperatives for the Chinese to take action on climate has been the health impacts of air pollution and something like 10 to 15% of productivity losses

Leigh Morgan:

Hmm.

Aimée Christensen:

years due to pollution and air pollution and workers, and the impacts on workers and the impacts of their economic engine. And so. We haven't integrated those costs into our current economic capitalist system. We haven't valued nature and all of the services that it provides. So we have, as regulators in the United States, we work to corral the market by providing policies, regulatory signals to protect the public interest is the idea, which means we wanna support economic growth, but we also wanna support social environmental health protections, It's labor regulations. How do we protect people on the job? So there are things where we need regulations that protect the public interest, while also job creation and economic growth. So how do we balance that? Well, in the United States, the fossil fuel industry has benefited from, a web of subsidies, and tax breaks, and those. unpriced externalities, some people would estimate those to be 10 billion to 52 billion annually directly.

Leigh Morgan:

Wow.

Aimée Christensen:

you look at the indirect support, like tax provisions for the oil and gas industry, depletion, allowances, et cetera, it's more like almost$800 billion a year supporting that fossil fuel industry, which as we know, has had record profits for years. And then the clean energy industry, in comparison has been, around 7 billion to 15 billion or so. And what the Inflation Reduction Act did is it said, all right, let's eliminate some of those fossil fuel tax preferences. to level the playing field for clean energy and let's increase government investments to unlock private capital more quickly for clean energy, which was already becoming the cheapest form of energy. As of now. Solar is the cheapest form of energy. Because solar plus storage can provide that kind of. base load concept of reliable, clean, cheap power better than fossil fuels now. So it's a really

Leigh Morgan:

Got it.

Aimée Christensen:

and what, the Biden administration was doing with the billions of dollars that it was putting to work from the federal government was working to support the acceleration of that private sector investment to move more quickly, to create those good jobs, solar jobs, you know, higher paying than average salary. good jobs. So how do we continue to grow an economy around that clean energy industry? How do we help support farmers, to practice regenerative practices?

Leigh Morgan:

Yay Farmers. Right.

Aimée Christensen:

Exactly. So it had a lot of support across our economy for things that were better for the climate, better for nature, that also were better for our, economy overall

Leigh Morgan:

I wanna just note the private sector investment piece here, because sometimes there's assumption that if there's a big policy it means an increase in government size, or it means that government's getting bigger These were actually just investments that went directly to the private sector. And so climate related jobs, has been one of the fastest growing markets, in part because'cause companies and entrepreneurs think they can make a lot of money there. And you know, there's this virtuous cycle that we want, which is. Do good, make a lot of money and save the planet. And even if you take out the do good equation, if you're creating a product or service that helps with the adaptation and resilience that benefits all of us.

Aimée Christensen:

A hundred percent. And I'll just say as far as that solar race, because it is such a fast-growing sector, I recall a story at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Talks where, a colleague of mine was in a taxi with some folks on the Chinese delegation who laughing at the US' recalcitrant for building a clean energy economy. They said, fine, you don't wanna lead. We're going to, we're gonna dominate in it globally, like laughing at us for being so ignorant to not invest in the clean energy economy, which we were the innovators of. That's been the challenge in America with clean energy, is that. We have the innovation through the national laboratories, the universities, entrepreneurs and inventors. We have an incredible venture capital sector that comes in often after that. There's a lot of resources in the American investment sector, and yet there was no market in the us right? And so what was happening in those early years of American innovation and investment in clean energy is the Japanese, the Spanish, the Germans were buying our technologies, they were willingly moving to those markets that were already being established for clean energy. So let's create a market in the us. That's what the Inflation Reduction Act was trying to help to do, bring that manufacturing home for solar panels, make that job creation happen. And as you may know, the majority of the IRA dollars went to red states, went to Republican LED states,

Leigh Morgan:

Yeah.

Aimée Christensen:

jobs in those states.

Leigh Morgan:

Yeah. It's gonna be interesting with the new budget because Republican legislators now are hearing from their local communities. Don't cancel that part of the IRA because it's providing meaningful jobs and growth in communities that really. Need as many viable, economic opportunities as possible. What's the increasing and critically important role of indigenous peoples

Aimée Christensen:

Mm-hmm.

Leigh Morgan:

on the global stage? Their, wisdom, their cultures, the way that indigenous peoples, even in their vast diversity, I will say this, when we say indigenous peoples, it's not one people, it's lots of different people and communities rooted to place, rooted to culture and language. So how do you see indigenous peoples, influencing and shaping how we think about living sustainably on the planet.

Aimée Christensen:

I think that a lot of us recognize that indigenous peoples have this deep knowledge of how to live in harmony with nature. That's what they've always done, and that's what we need to learn from. would say that in addition, in a time of climate disruption and increasing climate disruption, indigenous peoples know the plants you can eat, know the places you can go for protection. They have found those over millennia. They know the medicines we can use when you have disruptions and access to hospitals. There is so much knowledge on that place basis to help us in times of chaos and crisis, and to help us be informed by those practices to get us back in alignment, reciprocity with nature, reciprocity with the soil, regeneration of the soil. This is what they've done forever. So to have that reflection of. What we are taking as humans to live on this planet, to be more aware and how we can restore give back and regenerate what we've taken and damaged to date. That's in my view from indigenous practices, knowledge, culture, approach, learnings. I grew up going to Mexico. It led to my whole career getting to know the Mayan culture in the 19, late 1970s. So I was informed by their relationship with nature, their knowledge of medicinal plants, of

Leigh Morgan:

Yeah.

Aimée Christensen:

to eat, et cetera. In addition, on a place basis. I live in Idaho. Idaho has incredible Native American. Tribes here leading, restoring salmon.

Leigh Morgan:

Hmm.

Aimée Christensen:

are highly critically endangered. we must breach the lower snake dams in eastern Washington on the Snake River to allow Idaho's salmon to come home. The Nez Perce and the Shoshone bannock have been working hard, along with others to bring them home, to continue to hold them alive in this period of, rapid extinction rates. it is time to realign with the agreements. We sign the government with the Native American treaties to allow us all to restore our salmon and the Idaho salmon They come over eight dams, 900 miles, 7,000 feet. So as all the waters are warming through the river system, get rid of the dams to get rid of that stuck

Leigh Morgan:

Yeah.

Aimée Christensen:

behind them to allow flush to the ocean.

Leigh Morgan:

Yeah.

Aimée Christensen:

But also to bring our salmon home, to help the salmon get through this warming period and to have salmon after the warming.

Leigh Morgan:

I hope that comes to pass, and I know there's a lot of work to make that happen, and that's a great, example. And I, I wanna level set also about the status of the United States, particularly since the new administration has come in. Can you describe the consequences? Because I, the new administration is actively trying to defund the inflation reduction Act. It has pulled out of global agreements that you touched on earlier, bit of a pariah on the global stage, most, countries around the world Even if they're, poorly governed, agree that climate change is real, that slowing it mitigating, adapting to it is something that's really important for economies, for peoples, impacts marginalized peoples the most. So what do you want listeners to know? You know, cliff notes about consequences.

Aimée Christensen:

You know, I'm not good at CliffNotes

Leigh Morgan:

That's okay.

Aimée Christensen:

alright, so CliffNotes two things. One, the US delegation, at least. Under the Biden and Obama and Clinton administrations, the people I knew, we have a deep bench of scientists and experts who go to those UN climate talks every year and throughout the year are drafting and negotiating the agreements, the frameworks, to further our efforts to address climate change. These, are people with deep expertise who lend it to the public interest and who share with other governments around the world to collaboratively develop those rules. We no longer have those people, at that table, those indigenous representatives, we don't have them at the table for wearing the US delegation hat. US delegation is no longer helping to shape a system, and therefore when you're, as they say in Washington, when you're not at the table, you're on the menu.

Leigh Morgan:

Wait If you're not at the table, you're on the menu. Okay. That's Stark.

Aimée Christensen:

to protect American interests. Yes. And also help shape better rules with the experts we have on our delegation.

Leigh Morgan:

Got it.

Aimée Christensen:

it implies globally it doesn't matter when the US pulls out, we're not there. Climate change, not an important issue. Maybe others can roll back. But what's been great to watch is to watch countries like the UK jump in and say, no way, we're gonna be the leaders now in your absence, we're gonna drive forward. No one's perfect, but a lot of countries are stepping up and saying, all right, it's our job now to drive leadership, in this vacuum that's been created.

Leigh Morgan:

Thank you for those two points. And one other question on this, what do critics of IRA Inflation Reduction Act or things that Obama did, is there anything that critics get right? Was some time you or others might say. Yeah, that's a really, that's a good point. We should have been thinking about that.

Aimée Christensen:

Well, I guess first let me say that there are incredibly effective, knowledgeable, career employees who are in the federal government, no matter which administration informing the delegation, staffing, being part of those negotiations. I can think of Soaz who inspired my whole legal, legal career among others, who have that expertise no matter who's in charge. But of course, that's now being. Threatened

Leigh Morgan:

Yeah.

Aimée Christensen:

what the Trump administration is looking at doing to get rid of that career

Leigh Morgan:

The layoffs that are happening.

Aimée Christensen:

experts. We are losing so many people who are protecting our own interests around the world. Devastating. And that's been under Republicans and Democrats. It was George HW Bush who signed the Clean Air Act.

Leigh Morgan:

Mm-hmm.

Aimée Christensen:

write a Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. So let's, let's be clear. And Nixon, of course, who created the EPA, so environmentalism protection of the climate. It should be motherhood, apple pie. This is for America, no matter what party you're from. And that's what I find in Idaho is we can find those common interests. If you're a farmer and rancher seeing the impacts of climate change, what practices can you undertake? What crops can you switch to? How can you protect your bottom line, improve your bottom line by changing to better practices. So finding those ways we can work together in support of each other's interests is critical. Now, as to the criticisms, some might say that, oh, the government can't pick winners and losers when the government's putting all this money in, do they really know that they're putting it in the right places? And I personally would give it an 80 20 rule that when you are putting government resources in, you do your best to work with the private sector, with advocacy organizations and scientists and experts to find the way the government should operate, What projects should it be supporting? How should its go through its process? I think we've had fantastic leadership most recently under Jigger shot, the Department of Energy. But those are some of the criticisms I hear you know, the government doesn't know what it's doing. Why are they the one to be spending all this money? Just leave it to the private sector. Well actually you have incredibly smart former private sector people coming in there who are helping to guide government to be more effective to unlock that private capital by de-risking these key clean energy technologies in the right way. So it's not, I don't really accept the criticism. I acknowledge it and I would say, you know, but overall I think it's doing well. other criticism I will hear is, well wait. We have all of the jobs in the fossil fuel industry. you know, we get rid of these subsidies. What will happen to that industry? And what excites me the most is the transition that's possible from the capital, the expertise, the technology in the fossil fuel industry that can go into things like geothermal exploration and development, potentially carbon sequestration. So let's work more quickly on that, that accelerated transition

Leigh Morgan:

Right.

Aimée Christensen:

those jobs in this new sector. Let's lock arms. So I

Leigh Morgan:

Yeah.

Aimée Christensen:

criticisms of divisiveness. Let's not divide, yes. Let's acknowledge when lobbyists for fossil fuel industries, to undermine progress on climate. Of course, however, let's also find a pathway forward to continue to prosper together.

Leigh Morgan:

You know, that's such a part of the podcast of how do we maintain our strong views and our principles and also find ways to partner. I think that's really doing both is the only way forward. And, you know, one criticism I have is that, for a long time, scientists and others have been sounding the alarm. And yet, if you are not in a really marginalized community, if you have a stable life, climate change for a long time didn't really impact folks. And so one of my criticisms is a little bit of the sky's falling sort of tone and tenor when I think people knew the sky would be falling and that it was falling in some places but many of us in developed countries, we didn't know it. And so I think there was a tone deafness, right, that happened and maybe not the best communication. I think what's shifting now is extreme weather events are impacting everyone, whether it's smoke that's coming in from the Boreal Forest in Northern Canada,'cause these fires are raging more than ever before. And

Aimée Christensen:

Yep.

Leigh Morgan:

Folks who have second and third homes, they're burning down now or getting washed away for a hurricane. So I think actually the climate changing much faster every year is making people wake up. But then we have this asymetry between the US administration, which is downplaying all of it, when more and more people are impacted.

Aimée Christensen:

Yes. I hear you on that. Those of us who've been working in this space for a really long time, have this wonderful cartoon. It's like. What if we saved the world from climate change and created really great jobs and benefited health and protected our military security from migration. You know, all at the same time with,, these co-benefits. So what I, tend to talk about is we have every reason to act. Every reason to act. Whether it's better jobs, it's the cleaner air, it's the more diversified economies on a local level when we diversify away from just single industries. For instance, fossil fuels. so every reason to act, so let's bring the communication closer to be about your children's health. This is about your children's health. Right now, this is about the air pollution that's causing increased asthma when coal-fired power plant protections are rolled back. This is what it looks like when you have a mercury warning on a walleye in Minnesota or Wisconsin because of coal-fired power plant pollution that has been rolled back. And you can't bring the walleye home to cook with your grandson or granddaughter. And so this is cultural interruptions that are happening because of a lack of protection of our air in the near term that's leading to these dire climate disaster consequences in that medium to long term, which the human brain has a really hard time dealing with.

Leigh Morgan:

Yeah. I think continue to develop tools so that the immediacy of climate change is more real to more people. So that what's in it for me that has to happen well,

Aimée Christensen:

I care about.

Leigh Morgan:

me and those I care about. Thank you. And so. You have worked all over the world. You're thought leader helping to bridge divides as you've mentioned, and you're very much a small town girl as well. I've seen you in your hometown in Ketchum and Sun Valley, and you've stayed closely connected to local sustainability efforts in Idaho. Can you say why it's been important for you to stay rooted in local efforts amidst the need also to pay attention to these global agreements and foster a global community?

Aimée Christensen:

I moved home right at the end of the Copenhagen Climate Talk in the end of 2009. And literally as I'm landing, we had a 24 hour power outage because we're at the edge of the grid and there was a storm that took out one transmission line, and then the second transmission line couldn't handle the load that was switched over. The power went out. I live in a ski resort, and when the power goes out on Christmas Eve, Christmas day, the biggest skier day is on the mountain. The economic ramifications are widespread, millions and millions of dollars lost. The people who could left and all of the jobs and the income that would've come from all those people staying left. That was the first wake up call Then, we had mega fires hit us in Idaho, and in 2013, the Beaver Creek fire burned over a hundred thousand acres. The whole west side of our valley, right in the heart of the summer tourist season. So you're seeing all the summer tourists there and the income, August is called profit month. When local businesses become profitable for the year. And everyone was again leaving town mandatory evacuations because of the mega fire. and I was getting involved with our local economic development, organization and economic summit. I had been to Bhutan and looked at gross national happiness and how do we value beyond GDP beyond short term financial returns. So all of these pieces came together to say, what if we could leapfrog from a bit of a laggard on resilience to a leader on resilience. We are Sun Valley, we're not partly Cloudy Valley. Our solar potential is the same as North Florida and Texas. Let's go.

Leigh Morgan:

a lot of sun. There's a lot of sun. It's a beautiful place.

Aimée Christensen:

Valley Institute for Resilience. The Impact Idaho Fund Revolving Loan Fund helped fund farmers and food entrepreneurs to transition our local economy, more and more away from commodity crops and become more resilient, more diversified and more resilient economy. And it made me better at my global work because I've had to work. I haven't had to, I've gotten to work at that local level, whether it's city, county, working on our county comprehensive plans, which is the vision for the future, the strategies, the state level testifying at our public utilities commission often without winning. Unfortunately we have a, it feels like a bit of regulatory capture going on in my state, but we've had some wind and on behalf of solar but by working at that local. And state level it makes you really understand how do we actually get this done? How do we get these transitions done? How do we work with the utility? How do we work, with our colleagues in farming and ranching to find those strategies to help with that transition, help accelerate it. I'm super grateful that I am on the board of the organization I founded, very proud founder and continue to be involved to support the leadership of our cities, our county, our organizations. Our resort has a new head of sustainability. They're working on food waste. So I continue to do whatever I can to support that local resilience building

Leigh Morgan:

powerful to hear how rootedness to place and engaging there gives you such a helpful perspective. Then when you go into these global spaces where sometimes those conversations can feel a little, uh, removed.

Aimée Christensen:

feet. Yeah.

Leigh Morgan:

Yeah. And also remove from the day-to-day experiences that people have. I mean, we wanna have viable jobs, we wanna be able to feel safe and have education and eat healthy food that's not too expensive. And a, a lot of that, effort can happen at the local level. And you mentioned farmers and farming, which is vital in Idaho and not exclusively in Idaho, but can, you talk about farmers in the United States? Because I think many farmers, not necessarily these big companies, but a lot of local farmers really understand the importance of healthy soil, having diversity of crops and how that relates to their economic and wellbeing.

Aimée Christensen:

They're the ones closest to it. They see it. It's their land. They tend it, they steward it, they care for it. So those. who are actually tending that land, they know it well. But we have, again, a regulatory and policy system that often undermines them in transitioning to other practices. For instance,, in a place like Idaho, you have. Often use it or lose it, water rights. So you're incentivized to grow crops that use a lot of water so you can keep the water rights with your land, which really impacts the value of that land. What we've been doing is working with, for instance, an alfalfa farmer who's systematically transitioning a couple acres at a time to local market veggies. The impact Idaho Fund provided a zero interest loan to allow out for that. The hoop houses, the greenhouses, the irrigation system to build out the local market veggie production system, and they're able to spend less on inputs, no pesticides, herbicides, et cetera, organic local veggies. And also have a higher profit margin to be able to share with other alfalfa farmers. You know, to change practices is hugely risky and there's not enough support for farmers to make the transitions in their practices to different crops. There are a number of philanthropies and impact investors who are working to step in there to help provide some of those guarantees, or low cost capital or even grants, to help to support that, insurance for cover crops, for doing regenerative, growing. So there are more and more tools, but it's, it's happening too slowly. The IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act had a billions of dollars to support farmers in making this transition for regenerative practices, for transitioning commodities, if you're gonna keep doing commodities. Let's grow them regeneratively to restore the soil, which increases productivity, keeps the water on the land, deal with drought. So the IRA money, I hope eventually will get reinstated, especially for the farmers who need it. And we can all agree. say the vast majority of us can agree industrial agriculture must end industrial

Leigh Morgan:

why.

Aimée Christensen:

it's bad for the land, it's bad for the communities who are near it as far as property values, air quality, water quality, I have to say a lot of the jobs in those, particularly concentrated animal feedlots, it's, devastating and, the treatment of the animals. Of course, when it's

Leigh Morgan:

Yeah.

Aimée Christensen:

animal agriculture.

Leigh Morgan:

Right?

Aimée Christensen:

but also industrial, you know, corn and soy, the depletion of the, of the soils and the ability of the soil to sequester carbon and to get through drought instead of blowing away. As you may know, there are estimates of, a few dozen years left of topsoil because we dig it up, we till,

Leigh Morgan:

Mm-hmm.

Aimée Christensen:

practices. We till and then it blows away when the wind comes. I drive through part of Idaho every year, and I see it happen when the soil is barren and it's blowing away, and that we need that topsoil in order to, grow our crops in order to live. And those crops, like GMO corn is killing our bees, our pollinators, who we rely on our bees go away. We go away. I highly recommend the Jerry Seinfeld movie, bee Movie. Just see it, it's a great cartoon

Leigh Morgan:

What is it? What is it called?

Aimée Christensen:

called Be Movie.

Leigh Morgan:

Be movie with Jerry Seinfeld. I'm gonna put a link, I'll

Aimée Christensen:

did

Leigh Morgan:

link to that. Um, I did not know.

Aimée Christensen:

that what industrial farming with

Leigh Morgan:

Yeah.

Aimée Christensen:

corn is doing to our pollinators, to our monarch butterflies. So we have to just connect the dots. We need nature more than ever. Nature is our best investment when it comes to resilience and adaptation. It's mangroves to protect us from storms and to provide the nurseries for fish to feed us. Nature is our best investment for sequestering carbon. The kelp is an incredible carbon sequestration tool. Native Americans have been farming kelp and seaweed forever. So reminder, nature is our best investment and farmers know that We just need to support them with the capital and the policy structures to help them.

Leigh Morgan:

So that they can basically make a lot of money doing the right thing.

Aimée Christensen:

make a lot of money

Leigh Morgan:

This,

Aimée Christensen:

not now, the vast majority are in debt. The only way they make it are with subsidies, which

Leigh Morgan:

yeah.

Aimée Christensen:

promote practices which are not regenerative.

Leigh Morgan:

And, and this is that tension that I think is so important, which is the role of government, local, state, federal, and then even at a global level, these agreements that do encourage certain behaviors it's fair and important to debate what should the policies be? What's the shape and form and how much money and how to allocate our financial resources. If we were to center nature-based solutions. Solutions that really helped farmers, help local communities

Aimée Christensen:

Mm-hmm.

Leigh Morgan:

have sustainable practices. We have healthier food, better jobs, better security. We would literally see less asthma, we'd have better health outcomes. there is an overwhelming body of science that shows this. So our opportunity is to have the will to make that happen and to allow that robust debate that's fair game to me. So I love how you lift that up. And it leads me to really the last two questions. One really important question I ask all my guests is, what have you learned about bridging divides on issues related to climate? Because you're in rooms with CEOs of fossil fuel companies, and you're literally walking the fields with local farmers in Idaho, You know, and feel the diversity of views. There can be a lot of polarization. What works and what advice would you give about how to bridge divides on, emotive topics like this?

Aimée Christensen:

I would say, try to listen to what their interest. Is what their interests are. First I try, I was double majored in anthropology. So ask the question, don't, don't lead the witness. Right? Ask the question, let them lead you where their priorities are, what they care about. And then meet them where they are And I remember Wangarĩ Maathai, the great African, tree planting, Nobel laureate, taught us she'd go into villages, hear what they needed, and it was more water, plant trees. So often her solution was an answer to their interests. So hear their interests and find the best way to support meeting their interests, aligned with your interests. I also learned that the food and ag space is an area where I believe, can make even more progress. The organization I founded, started working on energy and food systems. I, continue to be an advocate for energy issues. I'm always listening to our Public Utilities Commission hearings and weighing in when I can

Leigh Morgan:

you are a super nerd. I love that.

Aimée Christensen:

super nerd. However, again, listen, right? Where's the community traction? Where's the community interest? Food and agriculture? I'm learning a lot from the colleagues around me, including Aimee Mateos, who runs the Sun Valley Institute for Resilience now. And I've learned, again, listen and support and go where we can help accelerate where there's that interest, and traction, but keep fighting even where you hit those barriers, We have to argue for the public interest, even if it's hard. Even if you're a little bit alone, are others will find you and we'll join you and lock arms and together we'll make progress. Eventually. We just have to keep at it.

Leigh Morgan:

I love it. Keep at it, keep at it. Trying to get young people's voices on the stage. Back in Rio, I can see that.

Aimée Christensen:

at the Sun Valley Forum,

Leigh Morgan:

There you go.

Aimée Christensen:

Have to tell you a little quick story but at the Sun Valley Forum, the event that I convened every year, one year we had the incredible young people who were suing the United States Government, for the lack of action on climate. And we had them on our stage and our keynote, closing speaker, was stuck on the tarmac, in a storm. I invited them back up on the stage and said, I just wanna give you all this time to close us out. What have you heard? What do we need to be doing, saying. as they came to the stage and I was listening to them, I remembered Al, I remembered Al Gore and I remembered him

Leigh Morgan:

awesome. Yeah.

Aimée Christensen:

start, I came back to the stage to thank them with tears streaming down my

Leigh Morgan:

Oh wow.

Aimée Christensen:

moment of al giving me the stage. And so, let's give young people the stage because it is their world

Leigh Morgan:

Young people. The stage. You paid that forward my friend. So I like that. I like it. One last question I ask all my guests. Imagine you had a magic wand. And you had one wish for listeners, for the topic today and whatever you wish for listeners would come true. What is that one wish you would give?

Aimée Christensen:

I would wish that anyone and everyone can remember or experience the miraculous beauty of nature that they. Can remember being out, playing with the rolly polly bugs growing up even in the street. Being out with the fireflies, which we have so many fewer now, but getting out there and remembering and observing that miraculous beauty of nature, these incredible birds I'm looking at right now, out my window. So fortunate to be here to remember that and remember that in everything we do every day, what we eat, how we live, as much as we can. not being perfect, but raise our voices, use our vote, know, just know that the solutions are there. Nature has the answers. Indigenous peoples have the answers and technology and business and innovation have the answers. So we have the solutions. Don't be afraid that you love and wanna protect nature. Know the solutions are there and that we can all, again, lock arms together and advance it.

Leigh Morgan:

That's a powerful way to end our time together.

Aimée Christensen:

Thank you.

Leigh Morgan:

I am so grateful for the work you do, and thanks for helping us sort through what's happening, what's going well, what are the challenges, and then just dropping that beautiful, wisdom right here at the end. Thanks for,

Aimée Christensen:

so much,

Leigh Morgan:

thanks for joining me, Aimee.

Aimée Christensen:

It's a pleasure. Thank you for doing all of this.

Leigh Morgan:

Okay. Bye for now.

I hope you. Enjoyed this episode of the space in between podcast. If. If you did, please hit the like button and leave a review. Wherever you listen to the show. And check out the space. Space in between.com website, where you can also leave me a message.

People on this episode

Contributor

Lakshmi Nidamarthi

Host
Head Shot

Leigh Morgan

Host
Contributor

The Honorable Satana Deberry

Host