Episode 100: Together, we can get this done

Molly Wood Voice-Over: Welcome to Everybody in the Pool, the podcast where we dive deep into the innovative solutions and the brilliant minds who are tackling the climate crisis head-on. I'm Molly Wood. 

This week it’s our 100th episode here at Everybody in the Pool. And I am pretty proud of this milestone. I started this podcast a little over two years ago because, simply put, I think hope is stronger than fear but I’m also a born and raised Western slash Midwesterner and hope alone is not a plan. 

Tackling the climate crisis surviving it mitigating it maybe eventually reversing some human-caused warming is a collective effort that requires innovation and invention and ingenuity and capital but THAT IS HAPPENING. 

I wanted people to know that across the country and the world there are utterly brilliant people working to create real solutions and real change. 

And for this episode specifically because I know we’re in a moment when people feel helpless and overwhelmed and the U-S is rolling back so many initiatives and canceling clean energy deployment and I could go on but that would really undermine my whole point 

Because today’s episode is about AGENCY. 

In case you’ve missed these requests over the past few weeks, I’ve been asking you, dear listeners, to send me emails and voice memos of actions you’ve taken in response to the climate crisis, whether because of this show or any other inspiration. 

The message today is that we are not helpless, and our actions matter. Our buying habits matter and send valuable signals to companies to create systemic change. Our FEEDBACK to companies does the same thing. Our votes matter like they really really really matter. Our investments matter. It all adds up it’s all drops and pretty soon a drop becomes a flood. 

And the messages I got make me feel genuinely hopeful, and included a BUNCH of great story ideas, too. So let’s get to it 

First, an email 

MOLLY VOICE-OVER:  

Good evening,

I’m a big fan. I grew up in North Dakota, and I think that we may have crossed paths back in the 80’s. Today I’m a chaplain with the U.S. Navy.

You had asked listeners about the effect of the podcast, so here’s mine:

- I opened a Climatize account after the episode a couple of years ago, and I’ve invested in some projects.

- My son is studying chemical engineering, and way back when you did How We Survive, the episode on lithium extraction got him interested in potentially pursuing that himself.

- About 50% of my retirement is invested in fossil fuel free funds, thanks to a couple of episodes

- I haven’t purchased one of those countertop composters yet…maybe for Christmas

So, as you celebrate your 100th episode, I’m with you. Your work inspires and challenges me. Thank you for all you do.

Also, I’d love to see you do an episode on the work that Navy does (and needs to do) to address its carbon emissions.

V/r,

Aaron Roberts

MOLLY VOICE-OVER: Obviously I wrote back to see if his son wants to come on the show and also I REALLY want to do an episode on what the Navy is doing so if anyone there including Aaron is listening call me! 

Aaron was not the only one who put his money where his mouth is here’s a voice memo on that front. 

TAKE SOT:  

Hey Molly, it's Josh from South Carolina. Just wanted to let you know that one way everybody in the pool has changed me is the way I invest. Ever since the Climatize episode, I have diverted some of the money I saved to those guys. And not only have I seen good gain since it's nice knowing that some of the money has helped support green energy.

Thanks.

 

MOLLY VOICE-OVER: As a reminder, Climatize was featured in Season 1, episode 10 it’s a platform that lets ordinary people invest in renewable energy projects. Here’s a snippet from that episode way back when, this is Climatize CEO Will Wiseman. 

TAKE SOT: EPISODE 10 6:06 - 7:57 

And so really the aha moment for us and the story behind Climatize was when my co-founder, she and I were in Barcelona for the global climate strikes. And there there was over hundred thousand people protesting in the streets. And this was just one of hundreds of cities around the world.

And I have this vivid memory of, of standing up on this bench and looking out. Over this sea of people, and there was all ages and there was this hope and this motivation, and yet we had this sad realization that we would all go home and the next day nothing was gonna be different. And she and I just saw that, you know, if our best option in this moment was to make a cardboard sign, there was a glaring problem.

And so we really started asking everybody like, what is it that everyone from that crowd. Could contribute. And from that people kept saying, oh, well, you know, what if it was just a little bit of spare change or like, what if it was a dollar? And so from that crowd, that was, uh, a hundred thousand people, if you did that every day.

For a year, or pardon me, for just that day, you would have a hundred thousand dollars and then if you did that for a year, you would have $36 million. And then if you scaled that to everyone, the 7.6 million people who showed up for those strikes, if they each pitched in a dollar a day, you're talking about 2.75 billion per year.

And we went, wow, that's actually a meaningful sum of of capital. And that could actually represent. A pretty substantial buildout of renewable energy projects, and that was just a dollar a day. You know, there's a lot of upside on that. And so from there, that's really what we've been pursuing is how is it that we enable everyday people to be active stakeholders in the energy transition.

and really we look at climate change as one of the largest economic opportunities of our lifetimes.

I’m happy to report that Climatize has only continued to grow since this interview, and has funded 11 solar and storage projects, investing $4.3 million dollars from over 900 investors and brought roughly 960 kilowatts of solar capacity and over 1300 kilowatt hours of energy storage online, as a result. That’s enough to power about 130 average homes for a year and enough storage to run 40-50 of those homes throughout the night or fully charge more than 20 electric vehicles. With your spare change. Let’s keep it going, shall we? 

 

(RETRACK) All right, speaking of investing here’s a voice memo from Nico with both feedback AND investing, and MANY more climate actions. This one is really hashtag goals 

TAKE SOT: Voice Note From Nico Reijns 

Hey, Molly, just some feedback and thoughts on your most recent episode. Number 97. We're near the end. You start talking about farmed seafood and I was interesting that you didn't get to any of the critiques of fish farming in particular what it does to water quality in the area. And also as someone based in the Pacific Northwest.

I know just a couple years ago, a massive pen of Atlantic salmon failed and released all of these non-native fish that could become an invasive problem as they compete with our already struggling native salmon species. While I'm intrigued at the possibilities of seafood and farm seafood I know that it's not without its own problems.

Secondly, ask for some input. On things that we have changed and thoughts for your episode 100 and a few things. Some definitely predate your podcast, but my spouse and I invest our retirement funds in entirely fossil fuel free mutual funds. We bank with local credit unions and so we, we've done a lot of work to.

Decarb our finances as much as we possibly can. We also eat very little to no red meat at home. And again as people based in the Pacific Northwest, most of the meat that we do eat is what we catch locally. So we, we do pay attention to our diet. We haven't gone vegan, but we know that makes a big impact as well.

One of the things that I wrestle with is, years ago having seen a, an article that was put out that said, what's the most impactful thing that you can do for the climate? And it was, have fewer children and we did stop at two, but it was an interesting. Part of our thought process in that too.

Anyway, thanks for the work that you do. I deeply appreciate your approach with this podcast of everybody in the pool. We need all of the above solutions 'cause this is a crisis. So thank you, Molly.

MOLLY VOICE-OVER: I love this. As a reminder, if you’d like to know more about how your BANKING impacts your personal carbon footprint but more importantly helps SHIFT money away from investments in fossil fuels and toward investments in the energy transition you want episode 85, not that long ago with Paul Moinester from TopoFinance 

here’s a refresher 

TAKE SOT: EPISODE 82 

Paul 

Sure. when you put your money in the bank, the bank lends about 90 % of that money out. And that is going to everything across the economy. It's going to mortgages, it's going to small business loans, depending, and this varies a tremendous amount based on where you bank. But for the largest banks in the world, the big Wall Street banks, as well as the large super regional banks in the United States, about 20 to 30 % of that money is being lent to the

world's most carbon intensive sectors. So that's energy, industrial manufacturing, agriculture, et cetera. And so those activities are generating a lot of emissions within themselves, obviously. And so if you just take this and you sort of bring it down to a bank by bank level, you can figure out what that emissions footprint is. And that's a lot of the work that we do. And there's about, you know, sort of a community bank in the United States versus a big Wall Street bank, the emissions profile.

is about five times higher at a big Wall Street bank than what it would be in a community bank, meaning your emissions could be 80 % low. Like there's basically an 80 % spread depending on where you're banking and what their emissions are from how they're taking your money and lending it out.

Molly Wood

Right, so we might be sitting here composting and never buying new clothes and participating in the circular economy and reducing our carbon and driving electric and whatever. But meanwhile, our money is just straight up financing a coal plant, let's say.

Paul 

Yeah, exactly. And that's what's really fascinating about this is that we sort of joke that while you're sleeping, your banking and investing is oftentimes undermining all of the things that you're doing while you're awake as an environmentally minded consumer. 

Molly Wood Voice-Over: Time for a quick break. When we come back, how you have tackled food waste in your own lives how you have fully retrofitted your freaking homes and how some of our more sci-fi episodes have left you dreaming. 

Molly Wood Voice-Over: Welcome back to Everybody in the Pool. We’re talking with well. YOU! Happy 100th episode, everyone! Let’s keep it rolling. 

Molly Wood Voice-Over: One of the things I targeted a lot over the past two years is food waste. This is like a hidden climate nightmare in addition to being WASTEFUL of money and land and resource and emissions generated by growing and cultivating more food than we need when food decomposes in landfills it releases methane which traps 80 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Note to self do more on methane in future episodes. 

Anyway I said food waste you said memo received. 

TAKE SOT: Voice Note from Crista

Hi, this is Crista from Weymouth, Massachusetts. After learning about flash food and the flash food app and saving grocery waste from the dumpster, I downloaded the app and participated in the program for a full year at our. Local grocery store. Unfortunately, it seems as though the local grocery store has discontinued the program and now there are no, locations near me.

But I look forward to finding, a flash food store when I travel. Thank you.

Here’s a little refresher on FlashFood from our guest Jordan Schenk, which was featured in episode 40 and come on, grocery stores in Weymouth get back on it! 

TAKE SOT: Episode 40, 

Jordan

It's a free app launched in Canada.

about seven, seven and a half or so years ago, all over Canada, came into the States on the better half of a couple years ago. We're mostly available in the Midwest, Northeast. We are coming to California in just a few weeks, which is really exciting. It's a completely free app. Effectively, anything that is in your area is there. We've got items listed for at least up to 50% off.

at a minimum. You can oftentimes find even deeper discounts when you get onto the platform. Everything you find, these incredible produce boxes that are oftentimes just the most food you've ever seen in a single produce box. And typically, the grocers will build out a whole meal around it. Or sometimes it'll be like 100 oranges for however many dollars sort of ranges. And then you have a lot of meat.

and et cetera. Depending on the retailer, we also accept Snap and EBT on the platform. So folks that are processing payments that way are able to do it, and we accept all payments otherwise. You shop the app. You pick it up in your grocery store. You can finish your shop in the grocery store, and you go from there. It's all sort of packaged up and ready for you to grab when you get in to the store.

Molly Wood Voice-Over: Side note, I recently heard on my old show Marketplace about digital price labels this was a story in the Wall Street Journal price tags in grocery stores that are common in Europe that can be updated as many times as you want especially to drop prices as items get closer and closer to expiration. You’ll find that link in the newsletter this week. 

All right, speaking of food waste here’s an email from Harvey and Tina that honestly is NOT sponsored content although it obviously thrilled our sponsor. 

In August 2023, Episode 13 featured Matt Rodgers of Mill.  The episode inspired my wife Tina and I to try Mill for a year.  We love it! It is easy to use and we have noticed how our trash output has been much lower.  We go to the local Lewes (DE) Historic Farmers Market weekly and use many fresh vegetables in our meals.  What we don’t consume goes into the Mill and becomes chicken feed.  We can also process some meat scraps like when we buy rotisserie chicken from Costco.

According to my Mill app our machine has helped divert an estimated 468 pounds of food scraps from going to our local landfill.  We feel great about this and show it to all of our guests in hope that they will also make the move to convenient composting.  It does not smell.  It works at night while we are asleep and requires minimal work.

Love your show.  We used to follow you on Marketplace as well.  Adding us to your paid subscriber list today.   The guilt of free listening has finally got to us!

Molly Wood Voice-Over: I left in that last part for you know no reason. 

RETRACK/NEW VO: I also got an email from Andy who said he got a Mill immediately after hearing founder Matt Rogers on the show, Amy said she got one as part of an agreement with a local company that does food recycling, which is innovative, and Michael sent this absolutely lovely last-minute note, he said 

wanted to let you know a couple of things my wife and I have done in our lives as a direct result of your podcast: I worked with HR at my last job to get them to offer the sphere 500 as part of our 401K portfolio. They wouldn't do it. I changed jobs, and tried doing it right from my initial employee intake. They wouldn't do it either! But when I rolled over my previous 401k, I decided to do it in a brokerage account, so that I could start investing in the sphere 500 myself! A second thing is that my wife and I bought a Mill food recycler and have become other evangelists for it. What a wonderful device. Whether you spread the recycled food on top of garden soil or mix it in for longer compost or just put it out with the regular trash enjoying the fact that your garbage never smells and you take it out less often.. what a device.

But even more than those specific actions, the topics you choose to cover in the way that you cover them supply A vibe that is like providing a light in a dark place. There's so much terrible stuff going on, yet I can listen to an episode of everybody in the pool in here smart people being passionately excited about cool stuff. That kind of energy is severely lacking these days, and I really appreciate you and your podcast as a source of it.

Thank you for making it feel so worthwhile, Michael, and I LOVE the Sphere hack, that’s amazing Sphere was feature in episode FOUR of the show it’s a whole movement and product to get 401ks to offer more sustainable investment plans because like banking this is a huge source of financed emmissions. BOO to both of those companies, by the way, but right on being an internal advocate and doing it all by your dammie! Again, Sphere was featured way back in episode four go have a listen. 

Next up yet another Mill buyer but also just a wonderful voice memo from Emily next 

TAKE SOT: 

Hi Molly. My name's Emily. I've been listening to the podcast pretty much from the beginning. I have a request, which is that I would love if you would bring back that woman who, her and her partner founded the Airship company. I would really, I'd love to hear an update on their work. I was fascinated with that.

And I also read ministry for the Future and loved the way that Air ships show up. Anyways, so that would be a really fun episode to have them back. And then just, other ways that this podcast has influenced me, I've really rethought my career. I've been in nonprofit for a long time and have been thinking about how could I set myself up for a pivot into corporate or startup working on climate things.

I also bought a mill which I love. I'm looking into getting an e-bike to see if my partner and I can go back from two cars back. Out to one plus an e-bike as a second vehicle. And in general it just, it is fueling and encouraging and inspiring to hear how many people are working on this and how smart and practical and thoughtful so many of the solutions are.

Molly Wood Voice-Over: This message thrills me for so many reasons, not least of which is Emily totally gets it all and ALSO is like smart and practical is amazing tell me more about airships, which are heavily featured in awesome sci-fi, and this particular airship technology was originally invented by monks in the 1700s. TOTALLY gets it. 

She’s referring to Diana Little of Anuma Aerospace which was featured in episode 22 and fun fact I interviewed Kim Stanley Robinson on yet ANOTHER show I do called Futureverse we had asked for questions in advance and Diana wrote IN which is how she ended up on the show. His answer is in episode 22, definitely go hear the whole thing 

The idea though is that we should move things by air but not jet fuel air like the blimps and zeppelins we actually used to have and have had since around 1900. 

Here’s a snippet from that interview aka why I love this show I asked Diana why we don’t have this now OTHER than the whole Hindenburg disaster thing. 

TAKE SOT: Episode 22, 4:28 - 6:26 

Diana Little: the main answer is helium. The second answer is

hydrogen, but both of them actually have the same properties. I mean, you have these, these lighter than air gases that lift a vehicle or a balloon, um, up in the air, but they don't wanna come back down. Um, so you start having some issues with ballasting.

Molly Wood: Right.

How do you come back down?

Diana Little: How do you land? How do you taxi, like a regular airplane? How do you load an offload cargo in passengers? It's hard. Um, you have, back in the day when they were running hundreds of these trips across the Atlantic, they had these, uh, masks. You'll still see 'em on some skyscrapers.

Molly Wood: Wait, let me back up even more. Who was running all of these trips across the Atlantic?

Diana Little: uh, the Zeppelin company,

Molly Wood: Okay. Mm-hmm.

Diana Little: I mean, the Hindenburg was not the only

Yep.

it was not the only cruiser

It wasn't the only airship.

Molly Wood: give us, if you would, for people who don't know, give us that brief history, like for a, a period of time after World War ii. Right. There was in fact commercial aviation in lighter than aircraft of which the Hindenburg was won.

Diana Little: That's right. Yeah. Um, hundreds of journeys, uh, generally from New York to Germany. This is between the wars, so there was no,

um, conflict at that point. And. Um, they were like cruises, but there were also, these were also people, business people going back and forth. Um, there weren't, uh, airplanes at that point, so this was an excellent alternative to the surface ship travel, which is the only other way to go. And they took about four days. Um, they were excellent rides. There are stories about people, it being so stable that they could like set a pencil on end. And walk away from it and come back and it would still be there. you know, big windows, beautiful, beautiful air travel. And there are actually some companies out there right now trying to make that kind of cruise, um, travel, uh, available again using airships, which is cool.

Anuma is still around there are other efforts to get lighter-than-air craft launched again including one called LTA Research funded solely by Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Maybe I should call him 

Ok a couple quick emails on the big banana home retrofits. 

Kory says 

Happy #100!!  You're looking mighty spry for 100!!!!  LOL 

Feedback I just finished building my "Forever Home" up here in Phlox, Wisconsin!!!  16kw of solar; ICF foundation;  the most energy efficient house my builder has done to date!; and it's on track to be a Net-Zero house.  I would have done it without your podcast, but I've gotten some good food-for-thought!

Molly Wood Voice-Over: Editorial note, I-C-F stands for insulated concrete form they use kind of like foam lego bricks filled with concrete to create more efficient and and moisture-resistant foundations for homes and commercial buildings I JUST DISCOVERED. And now I want one. 

Kory also said he leased 23 acres of his land for solar but it’s taking a VERY long time because sigh. Interconnections. And he asked a question about the cost/benefit of wind turbines that I will answer in brief and dig into more in a future episode … are turbines expensive to build and hard to dispose of? Yes. But the wind itself is clean and free, and the cost/benefit STILL works out better than coal or oil or even natural gas. But I do want to find someone working on recycling blades because that’s super interesting. 

Ok I do eventually have to end this show but I want to shout out just a couple more Clark wrote in from Pittsburgh with a story about upgrading his 100-year-old home with a heat pump and high-efficiency furnace and saw benefits but wishes the energy usage were better across the board and that his installers had warned him the upgrade would leave him with no heat in his  basement. Not cool, guys. 

RETRACK: One last voice memo from Otino and I’ll email you separately about your guest suggestion.  

Hi, Molly. I'm Otino Corsano, a longtime fan of everybody in the pool, and congrats on your hundredth episode. What you've built is more than a podcast. It's a movement for people turning personal choices into collective climate action. I wanted to tell you about my best friend, art Lightstone, a grassroots climate activist, who I think would be a perfect guest 

He runs a YouTube channel called Green Neighbor, where he shares his own journey ly climate change. As an ordinary citizen, one small step at a time, art's work really mirrors your mission. He's covered many of the same innovations you featured. He even installed Aeros, EALs, air Duct Ceiling after I told him I first heard about it from you.

His early video on heat pumps inspired me to get one installed just before the Canadian grants ran out. Saving me $7,500 and a whole lot of emissions 

I think your audience would love hearing from someone like Art, an early everyday climate activist who really embodies the can-do spirit of your show. I'd be happy to connect if you're interested. Thanks for all you do for keeping us all swimming in the right direction.

MOLLY VOICE-OVER: And FINALLY  there’s my buddy Ken a longtime listener to this other podcast I do called It’s a Thing which is just straight up fun trend watching and he’s doing what he can and I respect that. 

He writes: Hi Molly, I have been listening since the launch and am enjoying your exploration of the Sustainability Technology world. I think I learned about Everybody In The Pool listening to It's A Thing.

I have not changed anything in my life due to listening.  I have felt good about some of my choices, like putting solar on my house with a "critical loads" backup battery.  I do have enough capacity to offset my consumption for both the house and charging my Model 3.

I have also wished that I had enough money to push some of the technology forward by investing, but alas that is not the case.

Wishing you all the best for future episodes, Ken

I’m just saying, Ken spare change to Climatize but honestly I’m just teasing. If you’re putting clean energy onto the grid and driving electric like you’re ahead of the game. And you’re listening, and that’s what matters. 

Ok. That's it for this episode of Everybody in the Pool. Thank you so much for listening to 100 episodes. Literally a guy emailed me the other day to say he just found the show and is starting at episode one. I mean. That is commitment. 

PLEASE keep the feedback coming email me your thoughts and suggestions to in at everybody in the pool dot com and find all the latest episodes and more at everybody in the pool dot com, the website. And if you want to become a subscriber and get an ad free version of the show, hit the link in the description in your podcast app of choice.

Thank you to those of you who already have. Together, we can get this done. See you next week!