Hello, this is Max Sloves I’m sitting in for Matt Matern today on Matt Matern’s Unite and Heal Ameria. We’re speaking today with Brett Walter, of Climate Action Now, Brett, welcome.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

So Brett, we’re gonna talk quite a bit about climate change. And you’ve developed an app to help address some of the issues presented by climate change. And before we get to that, I want to sort of lay out the landscape of, I guess, we’ll start by by putting it under the umbrella of the problem, I’ll kind of throw out a few observations of my own.

And then and then send it over to you to tell us how you see things. And some of this is based on on what I’ve read about what you do. In terms of, we have issues that affect climate change. And a lot of those are, are based on human behavior as an intrinsic factor, just just kind of like the way we’re wired to do things, the way we’re used to doing things or resistance to change, kind of just run autopilot. And changing the way we do things is hard.

And the other is more external factors in terms of existing models of consumption and production. And if that’s too oblique, then like more specifically, like investment on a collective level and in existing industries, that dominate our economy. And then I also have this I see their view a third problem, which is the red herring of the way we talk about climate change. Yeah, so as we talked about the battle against climate change, we put it in these various order.

Millet, this very inspiring militant rhetoric of a war that we’re waging. You can imagine like Rosie the Riveter battling climate change it really, it’s just marketing to sell more stuff that may not be quite as bad as other stuff.

So yeah, where do you see the landscape, from your perspective, in terms of where we are with with this issue of climate change, and what some of the biggest obstacles were facing in this moment? As as we tried to kind of wrap our arms around this, this, this issue that, at some point, you know, none of us are really going to be able to escape?

Yeah, that’s interesting, you say that none of us are going to be able to escape. There was a survey recently, I forget who did it that global survey that showed? A Yeah, it was from the Yale climate study organism group that showed that most of the people around the world are experiencing the effects of climate change today, you know, wherever they live, okay. All around the world.

Of course, we’re seeing that here in the United States as well. You know, with the fire seasons lasting much longer, being really horrific here in California and Oregon, and other western states. We’re seeing it with floods, we’re seeing it with the hurricanes. Yeah, so it’s happening. It’s happening now. So what are the where would you like to? Where would you like to me to jump in on that?

Well, so you you’ve developed this app. And I guess, let’s, let’s walk backwards from the app like, what? What what did you see as as sort of a problem or an issue that inspired you tend to develop an app to address the issues presented by climate change?

Well, we’re, I think that the headline on climate change is that although we’re making progress, there’s a lot of really good people, really, millions of good people around the world are working on this. The problem is we’re not addressing it fast enough. It’s getting ahead of us. And I mean, Bill McKibben, famous Bill McKibben Mckibben famously put it, winning slowly is the same as losing.

So yeah, good things, but no, not nearly fast enough. I think that the courts I’ve been aware of this, you know, for decades. My interest in the environment goes back to when I was in high school. But I was quite active in high school, but I set that aside, went to college, had my career in Silicon Valley, and spent most of my life chasing shiny objects in Silicon Valley doing software things that nature.

But I think for me, kind of the trigger point for me was when Trump took us out of the Paris Climate Agreement, which was an extraordinary diplomatic achievement, and getting all of the nations of the world to agree to a framework, and to pledge to take climate action, voluntary action, but to make the pledge, and when Trump took us out of Paris, I said, Okay, you know, that’s it. I mean, we’re, we’re not going to have the federal government on our backs for the next four years.

And that was very true, right? He not only took us out of Paris, but he spent the rest of his administer his term, very effectively undoing a lot of the good things that had been done during the Obama administration, modest as they were, right. So we were without the federal government. And so a lot of it went to the states and municipalities.

But I said, Okay, you know, I, I can’t count on our leaders to do what needs to be done. So what can I do about this, and I’m a software guy, and that’s kind of my special talent. So well, you know, we all use our, our phones, these little supercomputers that we all have in our pockets and purses, to do everything, lots of things, except a climate action I was I thought, well, maybe I could create an app that would help people take action, you know, on their phones.

So that was really the thing that precipitated it for me, was that sort of symbolic gesture? And then, you know, the country going into reverse on this issue? So that that was kind of the genesis of it.

Yeah, it’s, it’s interesting that you mentioned the Paris Accords, because the the problem in addressing environmental issues have been pretty sure this, I mean, this kind of goes back to time immemorial, it’s the it’s, it’s the prisoner’s dilemma. The issue of people writing each other’s coattails expecting someone else to do the work. Without you without each actor putting in their their fair share.

And so, when, when a global leader, like the United States, which I think, you know, many of us still fancy the United States is kind of this beacon of leadership in the world. steps back from a collaborative efforts, that creates a real leadership vacuum on an issue that that needs a strong collective effort from from all.

So that, that really was a tremendously symbolic move by by the, by the administration at that time. And I think there’s really no kind of understating the, at the very least the symbolic impact that that it has, when the United States steps away from leadership on environmental issues.

But could I just jumped in Max and say, Yes, it was a very powerful symbolic act, but it also represented fundamental lack of that, I mean, it took us backwards, we lost four precious years, that we don’t have I mean, that’s, that’s really the, again, the headline on climate change is we’re not doing enough, fast enough, there is a sense of urgency, you know, that is appropriate.

And that goes back to one of your comments at the top of the hour about, you know, the the war metaphors that people use when talking about climate. And I understand that, and I sympathize it but, you know, metaphors are, well, you’re a storyteller. I mean, metaphors are immensely powerful. And I can’t think of any metaphor that really captures the the urgency, and, and the scope of action that’s required better than, you know, war, a war metaphor, I try to stay away from it.

But I’m not afraid to use words like mobilized, you know, we need a mobilization, such as the kind we had after Pearl Harbor. And just again, put jigsaw, another one of your points. It’s a huge problem. We all have a part to play and, and collectively as a society, and really, even as a global society. We’re failing the moment. You know, we’re selling our kids downstream. We’re selling I’m sure. And if we don’t step up, yeah, I guess.

Two really powerful points you may want. We can’t buy time like once Once we’ve wasted it, it’s gone. And the other the other being the way we conceptualize things, I’m with you 100%. I, I would never toss out the metaphor, the battle against climate change or the war against climate change, but but it does give us a little bit of insight into part of the problem. Because when we’re waging a war against a clear enemy, it’s a little more instinctive and intuitive to mobilize, but when the enemy is ourselves and our own habits and our own behavior.

That’s much tougher. Absolutely. You remember, you know, Pogo, the cartoon character, we’ve met the enemy, and he is us. And it’s not only that, but it’s also that unlike Pearl Harbor, you know, it’s not it does not appear urgent to most people think it is urgent, when the hurricane is bearing down on you when the fires are coming over the over the nearby hillside. Right.

But, but that’s happening to other people, right? We don’t, most of us don’t experience it happening to us all the time. Now, that’s changing, and it’s more and more people are going to be experiencing directly the effects.

But oh, my gosh, I mean, we saw in World War Two, with Pearl Harbor, we saw with 911, we saw with the pandemic, that our society, you know, can move quickly, decisively as an attack in its entirety, when we perceive the threat. And the unique threat that we face with climate change is that it doesn’t happen suddenly like that for everybody.

You know, at the same time, and I think you were sort of intimating this earlier, you know, we’re not sort of wired to deal with that kind of a threat. You know, we’re wired to deal with the lion coming out of us out of the brush. But not something that is a long slow moving catastrophe, like what we have climate change.

Let’s, let’s take a break. And when we come back, we’ll continue to talk about the sense of urgency and and how we can respond to it. This is Max slow setting it from Matt Matern on Unite. We’ll be back in just a moment.

This is Max Sloves sitting in for Matt Matern, on Matt Matern Unites and Heals America. I’m speaking today with Brett Walter, Climate Action No. Brett, before we stopped for break, we were talking about the perceptions of urgency visa vie climate change, how the way we perceive the need to act in an urgent way, is one of the obstacles that we have.

And I think it’s it’s a great segue to the actions that you’ve taken. What What are, can you can you tell us about this app that you’ve developed? That is that is directed towards taking action to address the issues of climate change?

Yeah, sure. Well, you know, the, the app Climate Action Now is is not the first and I’m sure it’s not going to be the last app that was created with this general purpose. There’s a number of apps already out there. And for the most part, what they are, what they do is they help people figure out what is their carbon footprint, and what sort of lifestyle changes they can make.

That is not the climate action. Now, that’s not what we’re about as we’re the only app Climate Action Now is the only app with a laser focus on helping people do the one thing that can actually solve the problem, which is to demand action from our political and business leaders. Climate change is a fixable problem. But not so long as our leaders refuse to do what’s necessary to fix it.

Right. And the only thing that’s gonna compel them to fix it is if we the public demanded. And that’s what the climate action app is all about. It makes it super easy and rewarding for people to send messages to our political and business leaders demanding action.

What like, what’s an example of a message that would be sent through the app and an example of recipient like who would who would be reading who would receive it?

Yeah, the majority of the messages being sent are being sent to our political leaders and and also to corporate 500, fortune 500 CEOs. So an example would be was you know, There’s legislation climate legislation proposed at federal as well as in all the state levels. So an action in the app might be, you know, tell your elected official to support, you know, this, this particular piece of legislation, HB 550, you know, on on land preservation or whatever, right. Based on your, your address, the app knows who your state and federal officials are, and soon it will know who your local officials are.

And it has their contact information. So you don’t need to know who your leaders are, you don’t even need to know what to say to them. Based on your address to say, this is your, your your assembly person, this is your Senator, this is the message, they can edit the message. But typically, what most people do is they just they push a button and an email gets sent to their elected leader, they could do it in seconds.

And then not only do they do it really quickly and easily. But they they get rewarded for doing it. They are in flights and when they’ve earned enough points, Climate Action Now actually plant a real tree on their behalf.

Oh, that’s fantastic.

Yeah, so we’ve done everything that we can think of to make it easy for people to take action, and make make it rewarding to help them feel successful for doing it.

That’s interesting, the gamification of climate action. I think the point system is really effective, I just think about the apps that I interact with, even when I know that the app is gamified to just keep me on the app, I I appreciate it. It makes it more fun, it makes it more engaging.

And so I think that that component is is really interesting that you have the point system, and then point system isn’t just purely symbolic, it’s there’s an actual action that is taken with the planting of the trees. With the accumulation of points.

That’s that’s a really interesting and cool feature of the app, I think the way you have it structured to just automatically identify representatives is really helpful as well, because I know plenty of people that are very active in terms of following politics on a macro level in terms of Senate senators or national leadership, but don’t have a great sense of who their local leaders are, or vice versa.

People are very involved at the local level, but a little more detached from from their, their national rep their federal representatives. And so the way the app bridges the gap on both sides, sounds sounds like a really wise way to to help people to do something that they want to do, but do it more easily.

Yeah, that’s really the the key to it. I, I had never done software quite like this before. And it was done business productivity software. And this, this I realized was pretty a very different animal, if you will. So I consulted with a number of psychologists and one psychology in particular, Dr. BJ Fogg at Stanford said, if you want to get people to do something, you need to do two things. One is make it really easy for them. And the second is to help them feel successful.

And so the entire app is really designed to meet those to meet those two objectives. So yeah, and I another thing I point as I’m not, you know, I’m not doing this for money, I’m not taking a salary I’m this is all about climate, as you can see. I’m not you know, I’m well along in my life. And this is what I’m doing with my life is is devoting it to helping people do really the one thing that’s going to make a difference, which is to get our political leaders, you know, to get serious, you know, I think it was it was Abraham Lincoln, who said something about political, he said, with the public sentiment is everything.

You know, without it, nothing can be done in with it, nothing can’t be done everything, everything can be done. And so that’s really what the app is about is making it really easy for people to take action, take the action that’s going to make the difference.

Right because so often why especially in the shadows is united with with so much corporate lobbying. What what is the public sentiment is the public sentiment But how do you identify what actual individuals are thinking in a landscape where ideas are marketed not just by individuals, but by, by corporate interests. And so this this direct action component, the app is very provocative in that manner, getting the, the voice of the individual recognized and, and counted. I find that to be very powerful.

Anyway, I just I just looked up the actual code, which I mangled of Lincoln’s what he said, and I quote, now, public sentiment is everything with public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed. And, you know, if you ever read Time Team of Rivals, or you know, their history back, then we know that Lincoln moved the country, he didn’t get out ahead of the public, he waited for the public, he led them, FDR did the same thing in World War Two.

But the public. I mean, there’s so many as you as you’re alluding, there’s so many interests at stake here, you know, some working for client, you know, for climate action, very, very powerful interests, like the fossil fuel industry, working against climate action, because it’s not in their financial interests, spreading this information, you know, causing people to feel that they can, you know, they’re the problem, you know, trying to stop, you know, legislation, regulation that can make the difference, there’s so much the special interest plays such a big role.

And they basically can have their way when the public is silent. But when the public is roused, they the public arouse public is vastly more powerful in the special interests. And that’s what this is about, right? It’s getting people involved and using their voices. And thank God, we still live in a democratic society. And our political leaders have their fingers in the wind, right perpetually trying to see which way it’s blowing. And when it becomes clear that the public is demanding action on climate, they will act, they can do it, you know, we have the technologies that we need.

And we know the policies that will get us on the right path. But we’re not using that technology and that and those policies, we’re not enacting the policies at the rate at which we need to do it because the politicians, so many of the policies don’t feel the urgency. That’s what we’ve got to do. You know, it really is the main, it’s really that simple. You know, it’s fun. Climate change is a problem of physics. But the solution is a political one.

And that’s what we really got to get behind and get people to speak up. And that’s the key role that people can play is to get their voice heard, and let people know that we need them to take action. And we’re not going to do that with one email a week, you know, or one phone call a month to our elected leaders. The whole point of the app is to make it so easy to contact our officials that we can raise the decibel level.

Yeah. Raising the volume of the individual voice on a collective level. It’s really so so manifestly important at this moment. We’re gonna take a break, and when we come back and talk more about the way technology is helping us take more direct action on issues like climate change.

This is Max Sloves sitting in for Matt Matern on Matt Matern Unites and Heals America. Today with Brett Walter, we’ll be back in a moment.

This is Max Sloves, I’m sitting in for Matt Matern on Matt Matern Unites and Heals America. Speaking today, with Brett Walter of Climate Action Now, Brett, we were talking about how the app that you’ve developed helps to amplify the voice of the individual on on an issue like climate change where the political will is so manifestly important.

And I, you know, it’s interesting to me, so much of what we rely on or what we see in media, are our polls, you know, polling that that is supposed to give us a sense of what the what the public will is, and where there’s more urgency and a need for more, more specific detail as to what people are actually thinking.

There seems to be something very powerful about an app like this where individuals are using it. So We can Is it fair to say that with an app like this, we’re able to quantify the political will a little more accurately? By simply just saying, Well, how many people have sent messages on this issue?

Well, exactly. And, and that’s, that’s really well, that’s our mission here. So far, our app users have sent for over 440,000 messages to they’re not only political, mainly political, but also business leaders, business has an enormously important role to play in this. And a lot of businesses are stepping up, and a lot of them are not, but the trend is really towards more engagement.

And they have more degrees of freedom. And typical CEO has more degrees of freedom than say, you know, politician from, you know, purple or red ribbon of blue state. So our goal is raise the volume level, as you said, raise the decibel level million messages by the end of this year, we call this our million messages campaign. So the first part of that is, we want to send a million messages by the end of this year, and then we want to be sending a million messages per month by the end of 2023.

And then we want to be sending a million messages a day, by the end of 2024. And when we’re sending a million messages a day to our political leaders, that’s an exponential increase and in the voice in, in what they’re hearing from the public today, and we will see that change will happen. What was needed will come about our political leaders just need to know we’ve got their back, they can take these steps that need to be taken.

And and they will be rewarded for it. And when that it’s really is, people tell you that it’s all really complicated. It’s not. The problem is physics, right? We’re putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which works like a blanket, which is reflecting back on the planet, the planet is warming, ice caps are melting, it’s wreaking havoc on the climate system, to then affect agriculture, mass extinction, you know, and so on. Right? That’s, that’s the problem.

It’s simple gases into the atmosphere, global warming, climate problems everywhere, that affect everybody, the solution? is, we all have a part, you know, yes, we should, when we when we need when we can, you know, get an electric vehicle or replace our gas burner with, you know, a heat pump, and so on. But we’re not going to get there one person at a time, we’ve got to move as a society, you know, with legislation, with regulation, right?

These are the these are the key tools, you know, an arsenal, which we’re not using, it’s crazy, it’s insane. It’s surreal. You know, we’re like neuro with Rome is burning. And we’re sitting around playing the fiddle, and I just can’t fathom.

You know, I think about this all the time. Why aren’t we acting? And you know, there’s all kinds of reasons there’s denial, it seems like we can’t do anything. Well, you know, people use the app, they asked the the biggest, the first main question we get asked is, How do I know I’m making a difference? Work? What that tells you is they want to make a difference, right?

They want to know they can make a difference? Well, the way we’re going to make a difference is we can’t ourselves as individuals make the difference. But by moving collectively, you know, getting the public I’m failing sound like I know, I’m broken record here, getting the public to demand action from our leaders, that’s going to do it. That’s going to that’s going to get us where we need to go. And we can do it pretty quickly.

Yeah, it’s unfortunate, but we do have to negotiate the cynicism of politics. Or like our elected officials, even even some of the most admirable the one. We individually, like from our subjective standpoints out there, they’re looking at reelection. And I really appreciate this this notion of an app like this essentially giving them permission to do what they were elected to do, giving them permission to govern and to enact policies that the electorate wants them to enact.

Right? Because it seems like there’s just so much inertia to that so much resistance to that. How do you how do you break through how do you cut through the fog to re establish the link between the electorate and their elected officials did theirs you know, we have our elections every every two to four years but what happens in the interim, it’s really interesting how an app like this potentially answers that question.

Yeah. And so they the thing about because we’re in democracy are our leaders are listening, they are watching, you know, they they don’t read like in the state of California, I’m sure Dianne Feinstein I know, I’m not sure I’m absolutely positive. Diane, Senator Feinstein does not read every email that comes to her office. But she has a staffer who’s keeping a tally.

Right? She wants to know what, like every other politician wants to know what her constituents are thinking. And that influences her, when enough of our constituents are thinking the same thing and requesting the same thing. And guess what, what do you think any elected official is going to do about climate? If nobody asked them to do it? They’re going to do nothing, right?

The only way they’re going to do anything is if they see enough people, demanding asking pleading, begging them to do the right thing. Step up, don’t sell our kids down the river here. You know, let’s get going on this game. You know, we can do it. Right? I just want to say I mentioned kids a couple of times here, I just, you know, I’m sorry.

They I hear so often I hear some people say, Oh, the kids are great. The kids understand the young people, they understand the problem, they’ll fix it. You know, that’s to me is disgraceful. You know, in so many ways. I mean, did you see Max last, I think last September, there was a global survey showed that three quarters of young people around the world think the future is frightening.

Over 56% think they have no future. And this is because of climate change. 56% Kids 1314 15 years old, think they have no future because of climate change. And guess what? They’re right. I mean, if we don’t do something about this, it’s going to be a very dark future. And so to me, that it’s heartbreaking unconscionable that grownups are leaving this problem to them.

Because by the time they are in power, it’s going to be too late, the damage will be irreversible. If the people in power today, don’t step up today, future generations won’t be able to fix it. So we have to face the problem and take ownership.

Right, the notion of passing the buck anything, but that just doesn’t work. If it goes back to what you’re saying, at the beginning, if you’re winning too slowly, you’re losing. Right? If by if by the time you pass the baton, you’re already so far behind that there’s no possibility of catching up, then a successful pass of the baton is meaningless.

So yeah, it’s it’s I think this this notion that we can externalize our, our personal responsibility onto onto another generation is it it is I can’t remember the word that you use, but it is reprehensible. And, and I think if we start to use rhetoric, that is, you know, sometimes inflammatory rhetoric can be counterproductive, but then there’s a time and place where it’s just right on the money.

And I personally, I feel like this is one where it’s just it’s not, it’s not fair. And it’s, it’s and beyond fairness. It, it’s functionally will not work, to, to delay action.

I just say something about that, because I touched on something that really resonated for me. You said it’s not fair. You know, Al Gore, he named his documentaries famous documentary that really helped got to earn him the Nobel Peace Prize, he’s an inconvenient truth. And I thought that was kind of a weak word for the problem that we’ve got.

But But it’s, there’s an awful lot of truth in this, this is not a problem that anybody wants, right? I don’t want to spend my time doing this. You know, I don’t want client nobody wants this to be happening. We, you know, we’d rather somebody else deal with it. And, but it’s there. It’s, it’s, it’s in our faces, and we’ve got to step up, you know, we have to face it.

This is this, this is this was the alcoholics out, you have to admit that there’s a problem. And we’re not admitting it as a society that this is a problem and even as a lot of individuals are not admitting it, so this is step number one. We have to accept that there’s a problem. Face it, take responsibility for it or nothing good is going to come out of this. And it we don’t don’t have to, we will have to change.

But, you know, here’s the thing that the future if we do it right, the future will be better for everybody. It will be healthier. I mean, this transition from fossil fuel energy to renewable energy. It’s going to be awesome. It’s going to be great. It’s going to create so many good paying jobs, you know, around the world. It’s going to give us healthier air. I mean, where do you live, Max?

I live in Los Angeles.

Okay. Perfect. Perfect. You are What do you think the sky is going to look like in Las Vegas when everybody’s driving an electric vehicle? It’s going to be crystal clear. It’s going to be amazing, you know, people are going to be able to breathe again.

Yeah. I want to talk more about this in the next segment. Right. Let’s pause for a moment. This is Max Sloves. I’m sitting in for Matt Matern on Unite and Heal America. We’re talking with Brett Walter today about Climate Action Now and utilizing technology to affect change, to fight climate change.

This is Max Sloves. I’m sitting in from Matt Matern on Unite and Heal American, speaking with Brett Walter, Climate Action Now.

Brett, in the last segment, we left off talking about the opportunity that can be created through addressing issues of climate change, I think sometimes consciously or subconsciously, people have this notion that like, oh, well, if I have to do something to help improve the environment, or to address this issue of clarity, but I have to give something up that there’s there’s a net loss in taking action.

But you were starting to see how that that that’s really a misconception. Can you talk more about that about some of the opportunities that will be created?

It is it is totally wrong, you know, and it’s a misconception that is been really fostered by, you know, climate denialists and the fossil fuel industry and the very people who don’t want us to do anything, they don’t want us to know how great our lives are going to be. If we make this change.

I mean, just give you a few examples. Have You Ever Have you ever driven a Tesla, for example? I have not driven a Tesla, but I just drove I recently started driving my first hybrid vehicle. And and the difference between a pure gasoline powered car is night and day.

Oh, well then go all the way, you know, get in a Tesla and take a drive. And you’re gonna save yourself, oh my gosh, this is this is so much better. It’s faster, it’s safer. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s making the air cleaner. And it’s not just electric vehicles. I mean, you know, people, we heat our homes, so many of us with burning gas, well, that puts toxin pollutants into the air that we breathe, it contributes to asthma rates, you know, and I don’t forget about you know what Don’t forget about but but I’m not even factoring in the environmental damage that this is doing. Well, what you switch to what they’re you switch to a heat pump.

Well, heat pumps, not only warm your house, but they cool your house, and they’re super quiet, and they’re super efficient and much less expensive. Okay, that’s another way of cooking your food. Right?

We turn on the gas burners. And, you know, we don’t, why do we have to put these smog? Why do we have to put these carbon dioxide devices, you know, sensors in our homes, right? By law, right? Well, that’s because there’s gases coming into our homes, right? That’s why we have the devices there to go off when there’s, well why do we don’t even have to have those because if we cook with an induction cookstove and my wife just got one a couple years ago, oh mg is such a better way to cook. It’s It’s electric, but not like the old resistance electric.

This is brand new boom, you can put your hand on it, you don’t burn, it makes it it can go to a very precise chefs in in, in Europe, are switching rapidly to inductions. You know, stuff tops, the solutions in our own lives, you know, the things that we use on our own lives, they are there, they are better, you know, they will save us a lot of money, they will make us healthier. Right. And that’s that’s an opportunity.

The bigger opportunity, though, is is is for the economy. And we’re just completely getting creamed by the Chinese on this, you know, we have seated, you know, the the transition, you know, solar panels 70% of their produced in China, it’s what we produce in the United States is a rounding error. You know, compared to China, they’re producing more solar, you know, wind turbines, you know, that’s where most of the electric batteries you know are being built the

These are the technologies of the future. These are the jobs of the future. And by clinging to the past, you know, clinging to the age of fossil fuels, which is dying and was inevitably going to die. We’re giving up the future. And Matt, if I can say, you know, I think that the here’s, here’s the key question, I think, if I may, for all of us, do we want to let the future happen to us?

Whatever it may be, and I guarantee we’re not going to like it, if we just let it happen, or do we want to create a future that works for all of us? And how we answer that question will decide our fate as a nation, the countries that cling to fossil fuel past are going to lose the future. And our nation, United States is in great danger of losing our power in the world. If we continue to cave into the fossil fuel industry, we have to embrace the future and regain the leadership and renewable technologies that we have foolishly ceded to China.

And if we embrace the future, everybody will be healthier and wealthier. It’ll be a much better world. And we’ve just got to stop messing around and get busy fixing the problem.

Yeah, there’s a there’s a win win opportunity here. And not just a win win opportunity. But I think like, a really unique and special way to reclaim a sense of identity as Americans. I don’t know if that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s like, the base of the foundation of American exceptionalism. In my mind, yeah, it was like, we can do things better.

Yeah, and we’re always we’re always looking for ways to improve and looking for ways to to do things better. And so there’s this recalcitrance, this resistance to doing what I always thought was the American thing to innovate, and to do something new and different and better. Right, for me, that’s really a departure away from the roots and foundation of what makes this this, you know, this collection of immigrants and people of different backgrounds and cultures and visit that unites us as America.

I’ve never really hammered home so hard on the actual title of this podcast before. You know that that’s a it’s a mindset, and a cultural way of approaching things that I think has gotten lost in the in sort of the more petty, political squabbles that that dominate our news sideline our discourse and, and everything you’ve talked about, it really presents us with this open door, this opportunity, this window to step through and reclaim a sense of American ideals in terms of innovation and improvement in doing things better.

Absolutely. And I think a silver lining doesn’t seem quite as strong. Right, right word for this. But, you know, I think we all despair, about the partisanship, the bitter partisanship in our country right now. And, and I don’t we look at this, and most of us go, what are we how are we going to fix this? And we can’t go on this way. Right? How are we going to fix it?

Well, guess what? Climate may be, may be the forcing function here. This is a common enemy, right? I mean, if we were being taxed by aliens, we wouldn’t be you. We wouldn’t be sitting around say, well, we can’t afford to fight those guys. Right? You know, we can’t change right. We will be all in it together. Well, climate change is is for us really kind of the common enemy.

But it has Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals, we all pretty much we all predominant the polls tells we want clean energy, you know, we like electric cars, you know, we want our government, you know, to do something. And the fact that it’s becoming been made into a partisan issue is insane, because it’s not partisan. It’s science. It’s physics.

What’s happening here. So I think I’ve heard Al Gore say this and I agree with him completely, that it’s very positive as things get worse, and they will get worse. It will bring people it has the potential to bring more and more people together and to kind of unlock our our innate greatness you know, as as a people like what you’re what you’re talking about.

So yeah, unite and heal America. We can do it. We’re still a great nation, and we can unite and we can heal if we put our shoulders to the wheel and start pulling together on this.

Yeah, this notion of unlocking Potential it’s almost humbling sometimes when you think about the the untapped potential of have communities and and the ability to affect change. But when when there’s when there’s that concentration that focus that that common ground, and it just be these artificial divisions that I mean, let’s be fair, like sometimes people just sincerely disagree on things.

And that’s part of what makes America as much as anything else is the ability to freely disagree. But on these issues where, you know, we should and can be coming together, like why not do it?

So, in the time we have left, where can people go to learn more about Climate Action Now? And the million messages campaign?

Yeah, well, we’re that well, to learn about climate action, now, they can just get the app and and that’s available in both the app stores iOS, Apple and Android Play Store, just go in there search for climate action. Now, three words, climate action, now download it, create an account and get going.

And you’ll be right into the thick of it. There is a website climate action, edit calm, that gives people more information. We’re in the process of building a website for a million messages campaign. That will be we haven’t built it yet. But we’re working on it’s called, that will be million messages.com. In a couple of weeks, we’re going to start a Kickstarter campaign to raise the money, we need to make it possible for us to buy the contact information for local and county officials so that we can accelerate the push.

And if and if somebody wants to do something right now, they could go to the Climate Action Now.com website, and by a planet saving subscription that would help us tremendously. I mean, I realized there’s lots of people who are, they’ve never contacted their political leaders, they’re nervous about it, but they can help by by helping us you know, you know, fund that what needs to be done.

So, you know, thank you for that opportunity to beg that, you know, shameless self serving pitch. But as I say, again, I’m not doing this for money. I’m not taking a salary, but I have people on my team who do need a salary.

Well, the thanks goes to you, Brett. I think this is a really special project timely, necessary, and so much appreciate you taking the time to discuss it with us here today.

This is Max Sloves. I’m speaking with Brett Walter, Climate Action Now, sitting in today from Matt Matern on Unite and Heal America.

Thanks.