A Climate Change with Matt Matern
Climate Podcast

#111 – A Climate Change – Christine O’Donnell

You’re listening to A Climate Change. This is Matt Matern, your host. Glad you’re tuning in. Welcome listeners.

Today, we’re going outside the box instead of an environmental expert. We’re having a podcast expert! We have Christine O’Donnell, she is my podcast expert. She’s going to be turning the tables on me and asking me some questions about why I care about the environment. Why did I run for president? Why am I doing a podcast, and but before we start listening to that interview, some news that has just come across the wires, which is that global temperatures are set to reach new records in the next five years. Wow, that is shocking, because we’re already on a bad trajectory. And now scientists are saying it’s getting worse, and it’s getting worse faster.

So we’ve all got to engage. And we’ve got to start engaging right now. So one of the things we talk about in this episode with Christine is just starting out three simple ways that all of us can engage today to start making a change within us. Because as Gandhi said, you know, be the change we want to see in the world.

So we as environmentalists need to start making those changes ourself in the way we act. And then, of course, bringing those changes out into the world, we speak with much greater authority and credibility when we are actually doing the work ourselves. So without further ado, you’re gonna listen to our amazing guests, Christine O’Donnell, and I talk about these issues.

So stay tuned. I think you’re gonna love it. I’ve got a great guest on the program today, Christine O’Donnell, She is the CEO of bright sided podcasting. She’s an award winning podcasting producer, two time Emmy-nominated in the TV area was formerly with Fox LA. She’s a renaissance woman. And

I’m very glad to have her on the program. Christine has helped me with my podcast. And I appreciate all her great work. And I loving to have her on the show to talk to her about what she’s done and, and what the future looks like in the podcasting space. Welcome, Christine.

Thank you so much for having me. I’m really happy to be here, and what an introduction. So I am so excited to talk to you in this space and to talk to your audience, because I am hoping to turn this podcast interview around and interview you, about you.

Whenever I listened to your show, I’m always like, “I wonder if his audience is curious, like, do they want to know more about Matt?” Wouldn’t be cool if we just did a deep dive. And with your permission, I would love to ask you some questions.

Oh, that would be fun. Yeah, go ahead.

Yes, well, you had told me in the past that you are actually a yogi, and you do a lot of yoga poses every day.

That is correct. And, you know, one of the yoga poses I think we talked about was the gratitude pose, which is like the Goddess Pose. So I mean, if you want, we can start off the, with the program with The Goddess Pose. And so you know, you, you spread your feet out, is, you know, maybe three feet wide and dip into it, do you know, and then hold your hands up as wide as you can kind of heart opening, and then just radiate gratitude. And, you know, you can also feel your quadriceps really engage, which is good.

So you get a good workout and you’re being grateful. So that’s, that’s one of the starter poses, thank you for bringing that to the audience’s attention. I like to do it every day to get in touch with gratitude and how grateful I am for great things around me.

I was going to say, I love that. And that’s something I learned from you and the time that we spent together. And it’s just the importance of gratitude. And I think you mentioned that you did that do that during every family gathering.

Well, when people come over to my house and stay over, we do some yoga and sometimes out of my deck and we’ll we’ll do it and did it today actually with a friend who came over for lunch and so did a little gratitude pose and, you know, it’s just kind of a good way to connect and say, “Hey, want to have that great energy.” Kind of communicating to each other.

Yes. I felt the energy, I also felt a lot of pain in my, in my quads, my legs. So I imagine after doing that all of the time, you’re you’re probably pretty strong.

It is a good exercise. And I feel like that’s maybe a common misperception about yoga is that it’s just about kind of stretching without muscle building. But I think there’s a lot of good muscle building poses that that Yogi’s engage in.

Matt, where are you from?

I am from Chicago, the South Side of Chicago.

Yeah, what brought you from Chicago to sunny California?

Well, I went to school down in New Orleans at Tulane University, studied economics there, and then decided to go to law school. And because I had an interest in public policy and, and thought that that would be a pathway to me to serve, and then just kind of always fascinated by the law.

So, so went to law school there. And then a friend of mine invited me to come out to California, one summer during law school, and I came out and I really loved LA. And so I decided, California is a place he ought to be. So loaded up the truck and didn’t go to Beverly Hills, but almost California.

Yeah. Did your is your family still in Chicago?

Yeah, most of my family is still in Chicago. three older brothers and a younger sister. And my mom is still in Chicago.

So you’re number four.

I’m number four.

What is the psychology of the fourth born?

The fourth born? Well, people towards the end of the birth order tend to be a little more adventurous. I think Benjamin Franklin was like number nine of his family. So they, I guess all the ground has been broken. The parents have kind of been broken in. So there’s more expansiveness that one can engage in by the time you get further down the pecking order.

I’m a first born.

Ah, a rule follower. Oh, good.

Well, you got me pegged. I’m a rule follower, my sister that third board is the rule breaker. Okay. That’s very funny.

So, you know, what was it about law that fascinated you so much? Is that because you were a rule breaker?

That may have been part of it. I think it’s also I like to argue. And so I was good at arguing. And I think that probably made it a natural sport. For me. It’s kind of competitive in terms of arguing and it’s almost like sports. So people who were competitive in sports kind of do well in the law, because there’s a very similar competitive element to it.

Are you saying you’re a competitive sportsman too?

Oh, well, I was an aspiring athlete. As a child. I like to play baseball. I played baseball in high school and tried out for the college teams didn’t quite make it. But I enjoyed playing, and other sports to basketball and other stuff.

It sounds like you had a nice childhood.

I did have a good childhood. It was it was a kind of an idyllic end of the period of time where your kids would just go out and play and nobody was watching us and take bike rides, and no moms or dads involved. And so it was it was fun.

Yeah. So now you’re in sunny California. Most of your family’s still in Chicago. And you have a podcast about the environment. Yes.

Yes.

Why?

Why? Well, I It’s kind of a an interesting twist in the journey. So I guess, I guess about six years ago, there was an explosion at the Torrance refinery, which is not too far from where I live. And it was a massive explosion knocked out the refinery production for about a year and a half, two years. It registered on the Richter scale. It was so powerful, and the US government went out to investigate and Exxon had kind of had it running in dangerous way and caused this explosion. then.

And then we started looking into it. And a lot of the neighborhood, folks were up in arms by this situation. And they retained us to investigate it. And we investigate it. And the more we looked, the more problems we saw that not only was there a massive explosion, but there was also a lot of air pollution that was being emitted, which included toxic chemicals, way above what the EPA allows. As well, as we had experts look, and there were toxic chemicals in the groundwater, and underneath people’s homes, and so that that those toxic fumes would leach up through the soil into people’s homes.

So it was, you know, it causes a lot of potential problems because of this. So we filed a lawsuit, and we’ve been kind of battling it out in federal court for the last six years with Exxon and the Torrance refinery over these issues. So it’s been quite a journey.

How many people do you think have been impacted by what happened and what was happening there?

It’s 1000s of people because the entire neighborhood gets pollution, air pollution from the refinery. It’s part of a systemic problem in Southern California to have this air pollution. But it is it was a fairly substantial contributor to the pollution in the in that particular neighborhood in particular.

Are there any stories that people told you that I’ve kind of just stayed with you that you can’t really forget about?

Well, I mean, on the day of the explosion, the woman was out walking her dog, and this kind of, it was like, it was snowing down the debris from the refinery that was coming down. Like it was literally snowing down ashes and, and material from part of the refinery that blew up. And she was definitely traumatized by that incident and felt some health effects, of course afterwards.

And her dog?

You know, I’m not sure how her dog is doing. That’s a good question. I have to check back with her to see how, how the dog is doing.

Okay, and what was it about working on that case than like, the fact that you have been working on this, and then at a federal court for the past six years that has driven you to advocate for our environment?

Well, it’s a long time coming. I’ve been interested in the environment, going back from childhood of being out, having the chance to go into wild spaces with family on vacations and things of that nature. And so appreciating that, and then starting to read more about it when I was in New Orleans reading about how they were destroying the by us and the wetlands around around New Orleans because of the oil drilling and all that.

So I was my consciousness was opening to it. And I just saw as we all read more and more about the potential for climate change. And I started to ask myself, “what could I do to help in this problem?,” and then eventually, I kind of got to the point in 2020, that I decided to run for president against Donald Trump. Because I felt like he was an environmental disaster. And he didn’t care about the environment. And somebody more of us should stand up to him and say, “this is wrong, and we need a change.”

Speaking of Donald Trump, it looks like he’s the front runner right now for the Republican Party.

That is a bit scary, for sure. And, you know, hopeful that that isn’t the case at the end of the day, because I think that it would be best for the country if the Republican Party repudiated him right now, and and somebody else won the nomination. Basically, almost anybody but Trump would be an improvement over him.

Like Ron DeSantis?

I mean, I’m not a fan of Ron DeSantis at all, so, but he would be an improvement over Trump. I guess that’s my thinking. Yeah. Even though I’m not a fan. I would probably I wouldn’t vote for Ron DeSantis. But I do think that he could not be worse than Trump.

Why is Trump so awful for the environment?

I think he’s awful for the environment because he does not care about it literally, he has zero concern for it. He comes from the belief that minerals and gas and oil should just be extracted without considering the cost to the environment. It’s kind of a view that might have been reasonable 200 or 300 years ago, but is no longer the case, and that there is a cost.

And he doesn’t care about the cost to us as humans or the planet in general. And, and that is, it’s just kind of a barbaric mindset. It’s so, so lacking in concern or compassion for for anybody. So that is problem number one.

And then problem number two, I mean, is that he does not have a concern about the rule of law, which is the whole basis of the United States is to be concerned about the rule of law. That is what separates us from from other dictatorships is that we do care about following the rule of law. And he absolutely does not care about the rule of law at any time when it’s against him.

Really, what do you mean? Why do you say so? Is he, I don’t know, being indicted for anything illegal?

Yeah, it’s not only the indictments, I mean, it’s all kinds of other instances throughout his his life. I mean, he’s been the party of 3000 lawsuits. I’ve been an attorney for over 30 years. I don’t think we filed 3,000 lawsuits. And we’ve got 25 attorneys working in the office. I mean, he is a walking litigation machine because he does not care about paying people.

So many workers have sued him for stiffing them. So I mean, it goes on and on. He just has no concern for contracts. He breaks them all the time. He does not fall, anything that he’s signed he there’s no his his word does not mean anything. It’s he’s always willing to change things because he can try to get away with it.

What do you think his endgame is?

What is his endgame? I mean, his endgame is become President, again, kind of pardon himself get away with all the criminal acts that he’s engaged in up to this point in time.

You know, I don’t know if he, I mean, he would probably like to become a dictator like Putin or President Xi in China, because that’s, that’s his impulse, he seems to always keep praise on dictators, versus democratically elected leaders. He is always insulting. But, but Putin, he never seems to have a mean word to say about the guy.

We talked about, you know, during our sessions was you being a warrior for the environment, like a “justice warrior.” And I like picture you on a horse wearing like a Viking’s helmet? I don’t I know, the Vikings didn’t really wear those helmets. But if there was one thing that you could focus on, what would it be?

Well, I think that that’s a challenging question, because one thing, given the kind of complexity of the environmental problems that faces, it’s hard to say that it would be one thing. I do think that right now, it’s kind of educating the public as to the problem.

And as to the solutions, that there are a lot of great, you know, companies out there and great scientists and great activists working on solutions. And we need to be supporting those folks and encouraging people in power to make the changes necessary to improve our environment. So I think it’s incumbent upon every citizen to be engaged on this, and to learn about it and to advocate for it.

I mean, you’ve been doing this show 110 episodes, I believe. That’s a lot of episodes. That’s a lot of experts that you have been able to learn from, and talk to, and what have you learned in 110 episodes? Like, are we doomed? Is there really something that we can do for our children and our children’s children? I’m a mom. So of course I want and even if I wasn’t a mom, I would care about these things.

Well, I think that we can and I don’t think we’re doomed. I think that we can make the changes necessary to help save the planet and to To create a environment that is sustainable, it is going to take a lot. And it’s going to take everybody working on this. So and the work starts now.

So look at the little things that you can do around the house and farm as far as consuming less and less, creating less of a footprint yourself. But I think it’s also a big picture thing is looking at the public policy and how we can improve the policies in our country and our states and our local governments, that will make big changes, because those changes at the governmental level, can drive society, much more than than just individual changes.

So it’s, if we’re just looking at recycling ourselves, that’s not enough, we really need to be looking at more big picture things about changing you know, the way power plants are operated and getting off of coal and moving away from fossil fuels. Those are the those are the big changes that we can start making that will have the real substantial impact to solving this problem.

So tell me about this photo. You’ve got this photo on your cover art, you’ve got this photo behind you right now of the mountains and the water and the greenery. What is this?

Oh, this is I believe a national park here in the United States. I can’t tell you which park it is kind of looks a little bike, Yosemite, or maybe Colorado could be someplace out it kind of looks out west to me. But I just I thought it was a beautiful shot. And it’s a reflective of, I think the world that we would like to live in, which is clean and pure and, and beautiful.

Ah, yeah, I see that is Yosemite. So have you been?

I have been a number of times. I really love it. It’s beautiful, beautiful, magical place, one of the jewels of our country. And you know that our national park system was started by both Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, two Republicans who are kind of my heroes as a lot of the starting the environmental movement.

Really? What happened? What happened?

That’s a good question. I mean, I think it it became more politicized sometime in the 80s-90s. And then by the early 2000s, the Republican Party was kind of off the rails on the issue of the environment. In as late as the 80s, George HW Bush ran, saying he wanted to be the environmental president, and he signed into law, Clean Air Act II, which, according to scientists, is saving 250,000 American lives a year because we’ve cleaned up our air.

So I mean, a huge piece of legislation that’s been incredibly effective. And then from there, I think, quite frankly, Dick Cheney steered George W. Bush in the wrong direction. I had interviewed on the podcast, the EPA Chief, Christine Todd Whitman, who was formerly the governor of New Jersey, so if anybody wants to check that out, and the website climate change.com, go check it out a great interview with her.

And she talks about how she had tried to promote and and the administration was behind a policy of capping our carbon CO2 emissions. And, and then when she came back from a conference in Italy, Dick Cheney and others kind of chewed her out saying she was off the reservation, and then she ended up leaving because she was not in accord with with that way of thinking.

Do you think you might enter the battle again?

I don’t know, Christine. That’s a good question. I appreciate that. I would like to support other people who might be able to be effective in advocating for these issues on the presidential level. I mean, I quite frankly, think that the Biden administration has done a good job on the environmental issues.

I voted for Joe Biden last time, because I believe that he would do a better job. And I think that he has helped get some legislation through that has made a good impact in this area. And I had one of his senior, I’ve had a couple of his senior people from the Department of Energy on the show.

I had a guy, Jigar Shah, who was given, you know, he’s in charge of the loan program for the Department of Energy giving, giving away $50 billion in loans to various companies around the country that are working on cutting edge technologies, which will help solve our climate issues.

So, you know, fascinating stuff. I also had a guy who was the head of their solar, and also another guy from who’s in charge of the wind portfolio for the Department of Energy. So, some fascinating episodes, everybody should tune in to those.

Absolutely. You know, I love I try to keep in mind here that the people listening to your show are people who also care about the environment, they care about making a difference day in and day out. And as someone who’s listened to your show, who has helped work with you on your show, I would love to know what you think, or just some small things that we could do every day, if you could give me three small things to do today, beyond recycling. Right? That would be that would help move toward a better future for our planet. Save it, the planet…

The planet, the planet. Yeah, that’s our theme song, the planet, the planet. So save the planet? Well, one thing that comes to mind is use our cars less so we can walk, we can ride a bike, these are things that we can all do, I think many of us can do, I think it might be more challenging in a rural environment. But many of us who live in cities, which is probably the vast majority of people in the United States live in cities or towns where they can walk or ride their bike to things.

That’s a it’s kind of a win win situation, A, you’re getting some exercise, and B, You’re not burning gas to go somewhere. All right. That’s number one, I’d say number two, I guess if you’re fortunate enough to maybe install solar on your home, or somewhere in your maybe work or, you know, advocate for in your community, that would be a tremendous move in the right direction.

So I would say that’s, that’s a big thing. I think maybe if you’re talking about smaller things, it’s just consuming less, quite frankly, our whole culture is based upon mass consumption and consuming more and more and more. And if we’re consuming less, that would make a substantial difference. And then, of course, when we’re talking about eating, probably eating less animal products.

And if you know, if your game for probably going vegetarian would probably be a step in the right direction or vegan. I haven’t I haven’t taken that step as date as of yet. But I There are days when I go vegetarian, and don’t eat animal products. I’d like to do it more and more because I do think that it’s a it’s a better path for for the planet.

So three things I can start doing tomorrow – is bike to work. I live in a city so I could bike to work. Two, eat more vegetables, tomorrow. And three, get solar on my house.

Yeah, there you go.

I don’t know if I can do solar tomorrow. But I do know someone else in my neighborhood just put solar on their home. So maybe I can be like, Hey, can I just piggyback off of you for a week or something? It’ll take longer than that.

Or just consume a little bit less. I guess that’s that’s another thing that’s an easy one for all of us to do is just buying less stuff. I mean, when you talk about it, the clothing industry creates an enormous impact on our environment.

And I was interviewing somebody and they’re talking about having anything other than natural fabrics. Those polyesters create pollution downstream. Dana Thomas did this great book on “Fashionopolis,” which, which really documents the impact on on the environment and those those microplastics get out into everything. They get out into the fish they get into wildlife, it’s all kinds of environmental problems. downstream.

So one of the things that Terry Tamminen, who was a former head of the California EPA, under Arnold Schwarzenegger said, is wash just your clothes in cold water. And don’t use the hot water, that will save a lot of energy.

I think it’s, I think that some of these things like they seem so simple. But also, it’s just kind of we get into these habits that become our lives. And it’s kind of hard to break those habits.

So like, so for example, for me, doing laundry is already difficult. They have to two kids, they’re dirty all the time, you have to like, there’s just, it feels like there, the laundry is never done. And I just I can’t imagine. And maybe that’s the problem.

Like I’m trying to imagine just them having less clothes, and then me just watching them with just cold water that they’re there’s probably a cold only setting on my washing machine. But that also takes electricity. So could I still use my washing machine?

You can still use your washing machine, but it uses less energy because you’re not heating the water. This is what I’ve been told. I’ve been doing it for the last few weeks. And I think my clothes are okay, nobody’s making comments about me, you know, being a problem close by. So I guess they don’t smell that bad.

That’s good. If I biked to work daily, I worry about that, too. It’d be fair to arrive at work. And people would be like, if you could just go try some wet wipes. I’m kidding. But it is a kind of small podcast studio space. So ya know. Anyway, moving on…go ahead.

I’m sure you’ll be okay.

I totally endorse you riding your bike to work. That’s a great idea.

Yes, I have done it a few times. It takes me 22 minutes to get to work on my bike.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Also, I don’t have to worry about parking. Win win. So let’s see. Let me look here at my questions. Is there anything else you want to talk about? Good. Let’s see. When you grew up in the South Side of Chicago, did you know of most Michelle Obama?

I did not know of Michelle Obama when I was growing up in the South Side. She must have been pretty close to my age. Yeah. So it’s probably a few years older than me. Not much, but a few years.

Yeah.

So yeah, it was, you know, I still get back to Chicago pretty frequently. So I’m going back there, actually today. So I’m going to have a chance to be in the Windy City for Memorial Day.

So I’m excited about that. It should be fun.

What will you do?

I’m going up with my family to go fishing up in northern Wisconsin. So really get a chance to take in some great nature, up on some small lakes up in northern Wisconsin. And sometimes we’ll see bald eagles up there. And it’s very, it’s very rustic, but quite beautiful.

So when you go back, will you will you be seeing your parents, or your brothers, sisters?

Yeah, I’ll be seeing my brothers and and their families and their kids, and my mom, and my sister. So yeah, everybody back there.

Got it. Very nice. Do you feel refreshed when you spend all that time in nature?

Yeah, I think there’s that connection to feeling. I don’t know what it is kind of like a more primitive state when you get out in nature, and the serenity and the calm of, of the country is, is really palpable. You can just feel slowing down and taking a deep breath. And just it’s less chaotic. Life is a little bit simpler, up in places like that, then in the big city. And so there’s, there’s something beautiful about being away from the city.

Do you worry that it could all go away?

Yeah, you do see it kind of changing. I mean, the seasons are changing in Chicago. I mean, the the winters are not nearly as harsh as when I was a kid. You can you can see that the there’s less snow, there’s it’s just doesn’t seem as cold as it once was.

So I mean, it’s it’s noticeable. You look at, I think the 19th or 20th hottest years have been in the last 20 years. That’s just statistically so unlikely that I think anybody who, you know, you don’t have to be a scientist if to see that.

That is just wrong.

I mean, obviously, it’s incredibly improbable that we would have 19 of the 20 hottest years in a row. So what are we going to do about this, Christine? I mean, that’s the question.

I would say, for me, being someone who lived in Los Angeles for almost 10 years, and then just moved back to my hometown in upstate New York, one of the biggest things that I noticed was just it being easier to breathe here. There are so many things that I miss about Los Angeles, like I’ve missed my neighbors, my friends, but I don’t miss, like, the air quality.

And I know that the air quality is better there than it used to be. But for where we live, we lived in Woodland Hills, there were some really bad fires. And we ended up pretty much trapped in our home during the pandemic while I was pregnant with my second child. And so that was one of the things that got us to move back to my hometown. And being able to walk around outside and feel like, you know, I’m one with the trees. It’s really nice. And it’s it is very refreshing.

And I do worry that the decisions that we make, or the fact that perhaps we get scared to speak up about what we care about. And then we don’t speak up. And then things change because of the people who are speaking up. And maybe their motives are not the same as mine.

And that kind of forces my hand sometimes, right? Like it forces our hand, it makes us have to use our forces and maybe step outside of our comfort zone and put ourselves in places we maybe never really wanted to be because it’s outside of our comfort zone in a way we didn’t really want to go.

But when it comes to advocating for our futures, sometimes that’s just something we have to do. So yeah, I think that making small changes is important. And even if it’s sometimes uncomfortable, just you’ve got to make changes in order for there to be a change. It’s just the way it is.

Yeah, as Ghandi said something like, “be the change you want to see in the world.” So for those of us who want this to change, we have to start being it ourselves. And I think that’s part of what drives my behavior is, “hey, I’m asking other people to change.” I need to start embodying that change, too.

And, I hear what you’re saying in terms of communicating this, that’s one of the things that we can do. You asked about three things we can do. We can add to that list – which is talking about the environment to our friends and family members, and bringing it up. And it is not necessarily always the most comfortable conversation. Because some people may disagree with us.

Though I think it’s important to engage and maybe find some common ground like you guys who may disagree with me. You may appreciate nature too, and and how can we protect our net natural habitat and be a good steward of the earth and how do we communicate about this effectively one, one of the people that I’ve talked to talked about how if we communicate about the pollution blanket that surrounds the planet, that’s a more effective way of talking about it than climate change, because people can visualize that a pollution blanket.

So a lot of this is about effective messaging. And we’ve need to do a better job at communicating what the problem is, in human terms that people can relate to.

And maybe not be distracted by noise. I feel like they’re, we’re bombarded with messages and distractions, from our phones, from our computers, to our emails, to the news, that maybe aren’t the most important thing when it comes to a sustainable future for all of us.

And finding a way to silence some of that noise and stay present and focused on the important things because, right, like, there’s always something that seems to come up in life, even if you have one plan, something else happens, but just try to redirect and remind yourself like, okay, I maybe feel really not great. today. I’m gonna get on that damn bike anyway, because it’s not winter. I can get on the bike, and I can, it’s just 20 minutes I can get to work. It’s not that big of a deal.

Yeah.

I do feel better when I do it, even if I look silly in my helmet.

Well, that’s, that’s exactly the way we have to look at it, which is “what can we do today? What’s in front of us. And what’s most important.”

Because what you said is correct that there are so many distractions out there in the world. I mean, it’s the beauty of our kind of modern society is that we have so much available to us, of whatever it is entertainment and interesting things to read. And yet, those distractions can distract us from what’s most important in life.

And even just putting a modest amount of effort on a on a daily basis will yield a very substantial result. Like, for instance, I was drinking bottled water for for years, decades. And I decided after I started to run for president that that was probably not a good idea that I needed to take my environmentalism a little bit more seriously. So I stopped drinking bottled water, and I thought, I calculated up I probably drank a whole roomful of bottles during that period of time. So all that waste resulted from that decision. And every day that I don’t do that, at least stopping the contribution to that problem.

What kind of bottle do you drink out of?

I drink out of a glass of milk bottle, you know. So, it’s environmentally safe, and it’s very good, keeps the water cool, and even when it’s hot outside. It’s better than a plastic bottle.

There you go. That’s great. I have one of those at home too. Okay, so maybe three small things that people can do to make a difference is: one, listen to this podcast. So, they become aware this stays top of mind. Two, talk about it with your friends and family, your loved ones. And three, drink out of a milk glass bottle. Put your water in a glass bottle, a recycled one, a jelly jar?

Very simple stuff.

A pickle jar. Something. Great.

I mean we can we can do things that will make a difference. And part of it is demand side thing is that if the if people stopped demanding certain products like bottled water and things that have a bad waste profile, then the manufacturers will stop making it.

All right. Well, one step at a time. One person at a time.

That is the that is a good way to start, as they say in the Tao Te Ching, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. So, this is the best way to start anything, is start small and build on it.

I like it.

So it’s been wonderful having you on the show, Christine. Great to talk to yo,u great to have this conversation. And I appreciate all the help that you’ve given us in terms of improving the podcast and getting it out to more folks and you know getting the message out there.

Because I do believe that there are lots of people that can benefit from hearing the amazing guests that we’ve had on the show that are incredibly experienced in this area: the world-recognized scientists, public policy people, and fascinating guests. It really can enlighten all of us. I know I’ve been enlightened by the listening to these folks that are doing great work out there in the world.

And it’s, and it’s inspiring, because you see really smart people working on this problem, doing their best and making progress and, and we should do our best to support those folks in any way that we can. And there, there are so many good organizations that we can volunteer and be a part of.

So everybody, take a look at our website, aclimatechange.com Take a look at some of those episodes. Look at ways that you can contribute to the planet and to your communities. And start now. Start today, do something like Christine said, look at doing three things just for today.

Thank you so much for having me.

And tune back in next week. We’re going to have some great guests on the program and it’ll be an opportunity for you to see new ways that you can contribute.

So tune in. We’ll talk to you next week.