Drivers know what trouble sounds like.
No, no, okay forward, Oh no, no, please.
No, that's why they get covered from Ireland's soundest car insurance provider, Supervalue Insurance.
Thanks for calling us, beIN and don't pat yourself up about it. Sure, I'm driving ten years and parallel parking.
Still that isn't me Get a quote from Supervalue Car Insurance to get ten percent off online.
And we'll even throw in forty euroin vouchers. Teasncy's apply vouchers include two twenty euro or forty eurospent. This car insurance is underwritten by AX Insurance, Deck Super Value Financial Services Stack Trading, and Supervalue Insurance is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.
Oh hey, it's technically expired yogurt. That's probably still fine and may be even more alive. Ali Ward back with a promised special episode of Ologies. Oh what a couple of weeks it's been my god. If you're a patron, a patriar and O kompslash ologies, you know that I was in the er and why. But if you're not, and you're like, what did you die? I did not, but I will one day, but just not today. At the end of the episode, during the secret portion, I'll tell you why I find myself in the er for
seven hours during a pandemic. But I thought I deserved some weekend loafing. I said to myself, Fuck all, let's make this intended bonus episode a full blown Tuesday one.
Shall we?
We?
Shall? We did? Here?
We are okay. So this is a really great conversation with my old pal, see Andrew Hall. He is an Emmy Award nominated editor, my first friend I ever made in LA decades ago, and the person who really helped me pave my path to being a science communicator by introducing me to find folks at Innovation Nation on CBS, which we're now shooting our eighth season. I'm recording this in a hotel room outside of Detroit shooting actually, to
be honest, Innovation Nation check your local listings. It's on Saturdays, CBS. But first I want to say thank you to all the folks supporting via patreon dot com slash ologies. Thank you to everyone who recommends ologies to friends and family and who rates. Of course, to everyone who leaves reviews
such as this fresh one. It was written by sev one two three, four five I'm a feeling, not the real name, but they said I have severe depression and listening to this podcast makes me feel so much better. Thank you, Ally sev one two three four five. Thank you for finding the time to write that, and I really appreciate you back. I hope this episode helps with some of the existential gloom we all feel. Actually, I
know it well, so let's get into it, okay. So Andy first told me about the draw Down design project two years ago. He was vexed by climate change and he was inspired by the draw Down project discussed in the How to Save a Planet episode that we aired last week. And so draw down is the point at which greenhouse gases start to decline, which is the goal
of folks aiming to reverse human cost climate change. So you will hear how Andy has always had environmentalism in mind and the power of art to start conversations and movements. How to approach climate change feeling less terrified and more empowered, How optimism helps scientists find solutions, and the social and
cultural aspects of eco concerns. How sexism is not healthy for anyone really, Plus solar panels, babies, steak Zeus voting, comic books, movie posters, snack tables, what choices you make matter most? And how commissioning the world's best artists and illustrators to make climate gig posters is his calling in life. So I went over to his house one night after
his kiddos were in bed. We were sip and whiskey and we were talking solutions and shooting the shit with my old old friend who is also the guy who now has to edit me on Innovation Nation every week and the founder and creative director of the nonprofit draw Down Design Project, Andy Hall.
Did you, nerd know? Do you know who the fucking editor is?
Me?
And the tables? Some toned?
Sorry?
I know how many hours of my stupid face of your edit? What I know? Okay?
The first thing I make you do is if you can say your first and last name in your pronouns you we're on.
My name is Sandra Hall. Everyone calls me Andy. My pronouns are him? Is him? Yep?
Correct? How long have we known each other? Sandrew Hall?
My god, nineteen ninety nine, I know, so that is twenty oh years.
That's crazy.
Do people want to hear our like meeting story? Is that the kind of well?
I think it's relevant, and I think it's relevant. You were one of my first non like came here, moved with roommates like you were one of my first people friends and I met.
In La me too.
In the time. You had a ponytail and birkenstocks.
I never wore birkenstocks. I realized how you could, how you could add that to the image based on what I looked like. But I definitely never wore works.
Did you wear tevas?
I probably wore t Yeah, potato potato, Well, I disagree, but.
Okay, they're they are They're a different vibe, they're a different five.
Yeah.
Yeah, So I met you you were a PA or you were a DGA trainee.
I was a production assistant yeah, in Barbie commercial.
Yeah, and I was working craft service. Was it Taco Bell or Jack of the Box?
It was Taco Bell. Before we move on, I think people should know about your craft service table.
Okay, Yeah, well you talked about it. Okay, I still stand by it. I stand by standing by that craft service tab.
So when I was this production assistant on the Barber commercial, I was stuck in this hallway and also in the hallway, same hallway, but from the stage next door in the Taco Bell commercial was Ali Ward and your craft service table. And I've seen a lot of craft service tables in my day, and I'm pretty sure this is the cutest, quirkiest, funnest craft service table ever.
Right, you need levels levels.
You had the risers. I had risers, right, and tablecloth over it. Yep. So each item was on its own little pedestal, and then you had a little placard for each item.
Oh yeah, yeah, you gotta label it. People need to know are these peanut butter pretzels? Are these sour patches? What am I about to eat?
Here?
Is this humus? Is this a cliff bar?
Yes? What is it?
Yea? And the when Ali posts on her Instagram, she has that blackboard with that like Ali font that tells you what theologist is. That is the exact handwriting. That's Ali's handwriting. I assume everyone knows that. I don't know that's the exact handwriting that was on each placard, and that The funny thing is that it's not like she doesn't try to do that. That's how Ali writes, like it was a grocery list, Like that's what it looks like.
You're not wrong. You're not wrong.
But I remember you were stuck by this Barbie door for so long, and I was like.
Your graft service sucks. If you want to hate some of ours, you know, I eat some cheese.
Man, and then we struck up a conversation and we've been friends forever. It's a good thing at a good craft service table.
Yes, and now I'm on your podcast. What the fuck?
I didn't realize that you had studied environmental engineering? Yes, so what did your Is that what your bachelor's is in? Yes, in environmental engineering?
Yes?
How did you get into film?
I worked on a set when I was a senior in college, and I got the bug and I moved to LA and then I ended up on Barbie commercial next to Ally Ward.
The rest, as they say, is history. It's just slowly warming seawater rising under a bridge. So in the interim,
we both got married. Andy is now the dad to two adorable kiddos with his wife, doctor Erica Hall, and a few years ago Andy bought the twenty seventeen book draw Down, the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming, by environmental scientists Paul Hawkin and Catherine Wilkinson, who was on last week's guest episode How to Save a Planet, and Catherine and doctor Diana Elizabeth Johnson co edited the book All we Can Save about Climate solutions too.
But sorry, we're getting ahead of ourselves here. Tell me about draw Down, Tell me about what kind of captivated you about that research and about that book that you're read.
It's just basically a list of solutions to global warming mm hmm, both sinks that suck greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and ways to reduce putting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And it's very nerdy and just like math. It's just like they got statistics, but a bunch of scientists they modeled all these solutions and they just made a list of which are the different ones, which are
maybe the best, and what we should focus on. And it's like, I really responded to how pragmatic it is. It's super apolitical. It's just like, here's what we need to do. And it's so inspiring because a when you read it, you learn we have the solutions, like this is something that is completely doable, and you realize how practical the problem is. It's just this practical problem that
we have to solve. It's not this pie and the sky thing, and the way the way the media covers climate change, the climate anxiety of spreads online, there's sort of this fog around what to do about it, and this really cuts through that. It's just like, here's what we need to do. Here's a list. I just found that really inspiring because I don't I don't encounter that a lot. Right when you're when you're doom scrolling on your phone, it's not like this, this really pragmatic list of
the things you just need to do. And that's part of my it's partially my personality, Like I just respond to that kind of thing.
Yeah, I think a lot of us are like I just do I use paper straws. Well, things get better then, and all of us are very confused about our individual responsibility versus how can we move a needle politically or socially so that this.
Can kind of reverse itself. Yeah.
I remember we were we met up for coffee when you found this book, and you were like, what do you think some of the biggest contributors to global warming are? Like, what are some of the biggest changes we need to make? And yeah, I was like, we gotta stop toasting bagels.
Like I didn't know the game.
To ask that question.
Do you ever do that? At hey cocktail parties? You got anyone want to guess what's number three on the list?
Uh?
I mean I've tried. That's not the best cocktail party. It's hard to it's hard to do that. You have to pick your moments right with that game. But it's yeah, it's really fun because when you look at the book, it's like, not always the things you think it's gonna.
Which is the whole point. We don't have these conversations enough, and everyone runs around in their own little anxiety bubble about how it's their individual responsibility to reverse climate change. No one wants to be the bummer at a dinner party, and the problem seems so enormous, so we don't talk about it in casual, positive, proactive ways. But when Andy showed me this draw down book list, my verbatim reaction was like, wait, wait, wait, what I did not know
about this? What if I recall correctly? Probably I said to Ford more times about whatever? How many can you list off from memory and order? Probably at least at least the first couple.
I'm sure.
Well it honestly, it keeps changing because they keep updating it. Okay, but the number one thing, I think it's no longer number one, But the number one thing when the book first came out was properly recycling your refrigerants.
Shocking. I'm like, refrigerator, what I feel like. I had never heard the refrigerants were even a problem in terms of global warming until we were sitting in that coffee shop.
It's a huge problem. And what's great about that one is it's not it's not it's something we think we can all agree on, Like, let's just recycle our refrigerants properly. It doesn't require a revolution in the energy sector. It doesn't require everyone to stop flying to see their grandmother. It's like the kind of thing that we could just do. And since the book came out, there has been a lot of movement on that, and there's a lot of
that happening. And those are the kind of things that are easy, you know, low hanging fruit solutions.
Okay, what is up with refrigerants? It is not a chill situation. So hydrofluorocarbons are organic compounds. They're made of carbon fluorine and hydrogen atoms, but they're made by humans and they can warm the atmosphere a thousand to nine thousand times more than carbon dioxide. Oopsie, we made this stuff. So a lot of the leakage, about ninety percent, happens at the disposal phase. So can we just use something
else when we can? There are natural things like propane and ammonium that are less hard on the planet, and so hydrofluorocarbons are starting to get phased out now more. There was even legislation about winding down their production that was kind of just tucked in, just kind of crammed in there into the COVID nineteen relief bill that was
passed in December twenty twenty. Which is why voting in local elections and congressional ones has more impact than the paper bag that you had to use a trade of Jose because you stopped on the way home from work and you forgot your usual tote. Stop beating yourself up about it. Forgive yourself, I forgive you.
What are some of the other big ones?
I mean, the big one is really electrifying everything. So the big ones in the energy sector are if you're trying to electrify your sources of energy. That's obviously solar farms on shore and offshore wind, rooftop solar nuclear, which is controversial. There's other funky ones like burning biomass and like converting waste to energy, but the big ones are all the kinds of solar and wind power, really and that's the main thing that really needs to happen.
Yeah, is stop combusting a bunch of coal and barfing carbon into the atmosphere.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And let's start using all of this solar radiation that is barding the planet anyway.
Absolutely, And I am not a client scientist, nor am I an energy expert, but I'm just inspired by the how doable it really is. Like all this technology exists, it doesn't need to be invented, exists. It's way ahead of where anyone thought it was going to be ten years ago. And we and by way, I mean politicians and people who run big companies. They if we get them to could just do it. It would be easy. Not easy is maybe the wrong word, but it's doable.
It's not completely unfeasible.
We're not just like on a crash course toward an incinerating planet. Where everyone's children and babies are all just crackling toast because it's too hot correct, which.
Is worth noting that it's worth noting that no one really thinks that's going to happen, I know, the worst circumstances, despite the fact that the media makes it seem like that's what's going to happen, But there are really terrible outcomes that we can still right.
I feel like when you started looking into this, you seemed like you were very motivated by the fact that you had a daughter. Yeah, a very cute, smart, wonderful daughter, and he thought, oh, I gotta leave this place better than I found it, I suppose. So is that what motivated Good Old DDP the Drawdown Design project.
Yeah, it's certainly part of it. And the other thing that happens when you have kids is it's like instant ego death reevaluate what matters. You know, it's such a cliche, but it's completely true. You just realize all the bullshit that you've been spending your time on in your twenties is like, maybe it doesn't really matter.
Yeah.
It starts you see the clock ticking and you think, like, yeah, what can I work on? What can I do.
I feel that same way with about Grammy. She's gonna die before me, but I'm still ha been the planet for her. But have you had you ever taken on a design project like this before? I mean you've directed, and you've produced, and you've edited, and you've been nominated for Emmys and all this stuff.
I mean no, in the sense of illustration, definitely, But it wasn't initially. I didn't initially come to illustration like I was initially after I read this book, just inspired by it and frustrated by how this approach to climate change. I didn't see that reflected in at least the media and art and conversations that I was having. Yeah, so I just I wanted this way of seeing, you know
that we have the solutions, positive mindset. I wanted to see more of that in the world, And when I didn't, then I started thinking about, like me, how could I get it into the world.
Yeah, we were talking about how it's not necessarily something you would bring up at a cocktail party at this stage in like where we're at with culture. But I remember you saying I want something that you can hang on the wall that would be a beautiful art piece that you could talk about with people, so that climate change and what we needed to do as people wasn't just like, well, we're fucked, but actually, okay, this is
a conversation I'm having. And I also think it should be noted that a big fan of fish and gig posters, is that kind of what led you to do something so visual?
Yeah, of course, I mean there is an aspect of it where I'm a comic book fan and I love gig posters and I love alternative movie posters, And because I knew that world and I knew those illustrators, it just seemed obvious and obvious way to tap into that kind of talent and just to make cool climate art, you know. I mean that a nice way to say this, you know, like there's just a lot of really lame climate art out there, right, you need any more crying earths.
We don't need any more sad polar bears on a nice flow, you know, Like we don't need another there's no planet planet b m M poster. Like I just want to see some cool climate art that's positive and like reflects the excitement that it that there is going on, and like the kind of climate solution community.
So in the Is Your Carbon Footprint BS episode of How to Save a Planet that we ran last week, doctor Johnson and Alex Blomberg talked about how the term carbon footprint was pushed by fossil fuel companies to kind of shift the environmental burden onto consumers, sort of a why are you hitting yourself move but involving mass extinctions. And then they crunch some numbers to reveal that the
average Americans pretty big carbon footprint. It's sixteen tons of emissions yearly is zero point zero zero zero zero's zero zero zero zero zero three percent of global emissions. So they said that is a decimal point, and then nine zeros and then a three, so yes, pitching in to lower RS matters. But there are big systemic things that
are at work here. So the Drawdown team of over two hundred scientists and policy makers made a list of technically viable existing solutions and found that refrigerants were a big deal. Food waste is another big one. Family planning, tropical forest restoration for carbon sinks, and onshore wind turbines were also biggies. So big solutions to big problems. So Andy read this and was inspired to help communicate these
strategies in a very visually arresting way. He also loves concerts, So think of a gig poster or a movie poster or comic book art. He commissioned four, each with one theme. We're going to describe them each. Also, just so you know, I really believe even this project from its very inception, I make no money from this, obviously, this is a nonprofit endeavor. I'm actually buying some and we're doing a giveaway on Instagram this week viaologies Instagram and the draw
Down Design Project Instagram. So follow draw Down Design Project on Instagram. But yes, the designs.
How did you come to the four that you decided on?
Well, to be honest, with your help, I got together a room full of interesting people and we just talked about it.
Way smarter than us.
Way smarter than us. There were some scientists, sent some people in marketing, and just some smart people we know, and yeah, we just looked through the book and all the different solutions and just kind of talked it through and kind of narrowed it down to for climate change solution themes. So the first one that I really wanted
to present was like political engagement. You know, when people list the things that anyone can do for climate change, they list that you should stop flying, and you should drive an electric car, and you should get a plant based diet. And yes, those are great if you want to reflect your values in your everyday life. But really, to me, you should vote for climate candidates and you
should send money to climate organizations. You know, there are a lot of studies that show that, you know, if you send money to organizations that are lobbying for climate change solutions like that, just impact dwarfs. Anything else you can do, you know. So our first print is called Engage,
and it's about political engagement. That one is by this gig poster artist named Brian Steely, and I knew his work because I'm a fish fan and I've seen his work Officials, and he has this really cool Monoligne style and it depicts three figures who their arms are joined and they're all they're all presenting themselves as being engaged in the climate fight. So one has a ballot and she's maybe pushing it into a ballot box that shape
like the Earth. There's a fun fisherman looking guy who has a megaphone who is, you know, shouting for his rights, and there's another guy with a placard who's probably marching. And I didn't prescribe these images to the illustrators, like I gave them the solutions that their print was going to be inspired by, and they just went with it.
Oh that's great.
Yeah.
What was it like for Engage when you got some of the first art back.
It was pretty exciting, you know, because it definitely it's fun when you have this idea in your head of what you want something to be and then you collaborate with someone else who's really talented and they do a better job and you could you get to see it, and it was just really fun learning about the printing process. So these are all screen printed, which is a really analog process, which is traditional to gig post, which is so it's not like a digital inkjet printer if you
haven't seen it before. It's like a press and the printer makes a screen for each color layer and then they individually press each layer of ink onto the paper. So it's a very analog process, and the prints themselves have like a ton of texture. The paper on this one is this really cool blue cover stock, and so when you see the blue on that one that's just the raw paper. So when you touch the blue part, it's just raw paper, there's no ink there. And then
the rest of it is the ink colors. Just a combination of a super fun image that is inspired by climate change solutions and the ideas you hang something like this on your wall and when you first see it, you know the text that tells you what the solutions are is not doesn't dominate the image, and so the idea is that it's kind of an art piece first,
and then it allows people to ask. Hopefully they ask you what it is, and then if you are familiar with the solutions that it's inspired by, then you can have a fun conversation about what those solutions are right. And all the solutions are things that you can do. None of these prints depict things you shouldn't do right, because a lot of environmental language and press and propaganda
around environmentalism is really negative focused. It's really like about austerity and the things you shouldn't do, and that is important, there is a place for that, but I really wanted these to be positive about things that you can do affirmatively.
Right, rather than things you're doing wrong. You should be ashamed of yourself.
I don't think. I think we've got plenty of shame people who people who believe in climate change and believe in the climate science and are scared about it, they feel bad enough, right, I don't think I think there was a place for that initially, but I think now we need to start getting excited about what the world can look like if we do these things.
And so the aim is to galvanize people and to essentially kind of get them excited about making some change and yeah, being more involved.
Yeah, and just be as fun.
It just should be fun, yeah, and pretty.
Just yeah, the whole the point is to do something fun and exciting and like positive. You know, I want people to feel good.
Right, tell me about Cultivate.
Cultivate is inspired by plant based solutions to climate change, and it is by a UK based artist. Her pen name is Tula Lote. Her real name is Lisa Wood. Okay, I've been a fan of hers forever she does. She's a comic book artist. She's done some really cool stuff for Marvel and a bunch of other common companies. She also has done a bunch of alternative movie posters Formanda, which is how I know her. She has this incredible drive poster and yeah, she was on my short short list, and she said, yes.
It was it Banana's getting emails back from people that you really liked their work and they were like, yeah, sure, I'm done.
Yes it was bananas.
Cut bangs, text your art crushes, eat more plants because your body and mind will thank you. To be honest, your guts and forehead are going to be like finally, finally, bitch.
So for her it was plant based solutions. The background is all pink and the main figure is a woman in a blue dress. She's probably a farmer, you know. She's carrying a big bundle of wheat that is just gorgeously drawn. The detail in it is so so beautiful, and she's got a bamboo pole over her shoulder and she's kind of looking off into the distance. You know, I kind of go back and forth. I don't know if she's sad or determined. It's just a beautiful image.
It's it's, you know, like a lot of great illustrations, it's hard to pin down exactly what it means. It's just it's evocative when you see it. Every single one of these artists when they sent me their initial idea. They would send the idea and they would invariably say, but you know, I'll tone it down a little, is what they would say, because I think they were reacting to what they have normally seen in like climate art. Is this sort of NPR tote bag, Yes, sort of
toned down let's not be too crazy sensibility. And I would always email back and be like, do not, under any circumstances tone it down, so as crazy as you possibly can. Like, the whole point is for this to be as expressive as possible.
And then what about Empower?
I feel like Empower is one of the most colorful of the bud two.
Yeah, so empower is about So empower is inspired by solutions to climate change based around health and education, primarily for women and girls. This one is this one was It took a long time to decide whether or not to include this one in the set because this is a controversial set of solutions to climate change. And if you're interested, I encourage you to go to the Project Drawdown site and read more about it there. They have
a great way of talking about it. But these solutions, which are basically education equity, educating girls, giving girls access to family planning, and I included climate justice on this one because that seemed to fit in the theme of empowerment. But those first two solutions, education equity and giving girls access to family planning, are controversial because the basis of that solution is there'll be less people.
Okay, let's get into this. So this is the draw Down's health and education solution, and there are a few components to it. First is universal education, So the Drawdown website reports that sixty two million girls around the world are kept from their right to education, but that making school affordable, helping girls overcome health barriers, reducing the time and distance to get to school, and making schools more
girl friendly would help. And they say quote, educated girls realize higher wages and greater upward mobility, contributing to economic growth. Their rates of maternal mortality drop, as do mortality rates of their babies. And education also equips girls and women to face the impacts of climate change. They can be more effective stewards of food, soil, trees, and water even as nature's cycles change quote, which this brings up the
family planning issue. So according to Drawdown research, women with more years of education have fewer and healthier and are
better prepared to actively manage their reproductive health. I'm just going to quote the Drawdown Project directly here, they say, Quote, some two hundred and twenty five million women in lower income countries say they want the ability to choose whether and when to become pregnant, but lack the necessary access to contraception, and the need persists in some high income countries as well, including the United States, where forty five
percent of pregnancies are unintended. Currently, the world faces a five point three billion dollar funding shortfall for providing the access to reproductive healthcare that women say they want to have.
End quote.
Obviously that gender language was binary, but non binary tran folks, I see you too, and the draw down continues. Honoring the dignity of women and children through family planning is not about governments forcing the birth rate down or up through natalist policies, Nor is it about those enriched countries where emissions are highest telling people elsewhere to stop having children.
When family planning focuses on healthcare provision and meeting women's expressed needs, empowerment, equality and well being are the result.
The benefits to the planet are side effects.
So Okay, what's the numerical bottom line here? How much do health and education really impact the planet. So by centering human rights issues of reproductive health and universal education over the next thirty years, it would.
Reduce or sequester eighty.
Five point four giga tons gicket tons of carbon dioxide, which is great if you weren't already sold on the more people having access to education and control of their own reproductive planning stuff. Personally, I am all for people of all genders getting the school they want and getting to make their own reproductive choices. Bonus, just a lot less loose carbon boiling the oceans.
But this is one of those things that as you're researching solutions to climate change, you discover that even if they're was no global warming, all of these things are worth doing. All these solutions to climate change have all these incredible co benefits, and so even if educating girls and giving them access to family planning made climate change worse, it would still be worth doing.
Right.
But it just so happens that in the modeling and project draw down it makes you know, it reduces greenhouse gases over time. So it's a controversial one. I decided to include it because I have a daughter, and I just believe in these things for women all over the world, regardless of climate change. I'll leave it at that.
Also, some of our.
Biggest voices I feel like in climate advocacy are women absolutely absolutely had access to education education, yes, and were empowered to use their voices.
Yes. Well that you know if you look at the review of this in project draw down, they describe how when women get access to education, and we're primarily talking about women in other countries other than Western countries, they tend to rise into leadership roles and they just they tend to be leaders in a way that are as
climate friendly. Right, then the businesses they run and the leadership positions they take, there's just a lot of knock on and co benefits to making sure women and girls have a fair shake all over the.
World, and just in general, like gender equity across the spectrum, I feel like when there's more recognition of that that tends to apply toward LGBTQ and trans folks in general, where we're just trying to across the board get more equity for people. Yes, which is a good thing, no matter what. Yes, which is great. Andy wrote me a note afterward, just to reiterate how passionate he is about the co benefits of these solutions.
He says climate.
Justice also lifts people out of poverty. Access to family planning also lets girls choose their own path. Electrification also freese people from the silent epidemic of killer air pollution. Wildland protection also saves us humans places to enjoy. Regenerative agriculture also makes produce more nutritious and saves farmers money. Plant rich diets also have personal health benefits. He says, nearly all climate change solutions are worth doing even if global warming was a non issue.
Now.
I also love that he's made these posters and these visuals that can spark conversations, and as they're doing, it remind us to get more involved in the things that do move the needle. So if you can help reverse climate change, you can also clean out the garage. You can write a novel, you can adopt a bunny like you've always wanted to live your life, you can do it. So the next poster is called empower Yes, and can you describe that one?
Yeah? So that's by a Brooklyn based comic book artist named Carrie Randolph. He's worked for a ton of different comic book companies, and he wanted to do a print that was inspired by Jack Kirby. Jack Kirby is one of the godfathers of comic book illustration. A lot of the images that you've that everyone has sort of internalized from the sixties and seventies he drew. He's a huge influence,
especially on Marvel stuff. And so the main figure in this one, the girl in this figure, her costume is of like a very Kirby costume, and the background in this one all the like sort of intergalactic swirls and circles that is a very typical of a Jack Kirby illustration. And it's nicknamed Kirby Crackle. So it's a real Kirby homage. This one. It's a real comic book which is great. And she's just an awesome figure. I love her expression, I love her attitude. I love that her hit job
turns into a cape. Yeah, it's great.
And the last one is Electrify.
So Electrify is by an Italian collective of illustrators who are pretty well known in the gig poster world.
They're called Malleus, and their style is kind of trippy and flowy.
They do these sort of vintage look San Francisco Bay Area gig poster inspired illustrations, and yeah, I gave them that they were I gave them the climate change solutions that their print was going to be inspired by, which is building, retrofitting, solar voltaics and electric vehicles, and this is what they came up with. This one is really cool because it's hand pulled by them in Italy in their own studio. The other three it's a screen printing
machine that is still operated by a human. It's still analog, but it allows for more precision. Whereas there's his hand pulled, it's literally just like the artist is pulling like a glob of ink over the screen on this wooden frame, and so the ink just kind of gets denser. It's a little messier at the edges in a great way, and it gives it that really classic gig poster look.
It's a sort of a Zeus like figure with crazy red hair, and he's got one arm pointed up to the sun and I think he's sucking energy out of it like a solar panel, and his other hand is coming into the foreground and he's got some lightning bolts coming out of it, and there's a bunch of hungry electric plugs that look like snakes in the foreground, ready to get some juice. I love that they're European plugs.
They're like the two twenty vault plugs. There's an awesome moon with this cool grid in it in the background and clouds, and the orange and blue inks in this one are metallic inks, so it has a little shimmer. It's just a great illustration.
So people can get them as a set, or they can get them individually.
Yeah, So if you go to our website Drawdown Design Project dot org, then yeah, you can buy one, you can buy two, you can buy three, you can buy four, and their first sale by donation.
So Andy's Drawdown Design Project is a nonprofit and each print is seventy five bucks and one hundred percent of the proceeds go to the Coalition for Rainforest Nations. And the Coalition for Rainforest Nations develops policy and tools to achieve sustainability for forested and adjacent agricultural lands. They manage tropical rainforest areas in support of climate stability, biodiversity, sustainable development,
and poverty alleviation. And they create financial tools in partnership with governments and communities, businesses and stakeholders, they improve living standards for forest dependent communities and they're setting a precedent that enables similar outcomes in other tropically forested countries. So I really encourage you to think about the messages you want to keep top of mind, the art that inspires you.
Think about getting a draw Down Design Project poster as a gift for someone and you can contribute to talking about climate change solutions galvanize some others. So we are buying two sets of draw Down Design Project posters and we're giving away eight posters this week via their Instagram at draw Down Design Project. So that is on Instagram at draw Down Design Project, so follow them and you
can enter there we'll be giving away eight. You can also just buy one yourself at Drawdown Design Project dot org and those proceeds will go to the Coalition for Rainforest Nations. Thanks to the following sponsors for making that possible.
Drivers know what trouble sounds like?
No? No, okay? Forward? Oh no, no pretty?
So that's why they get covered from Ireland's soundest car insurance provider, Supervalue Insurance.
Thanks for calling us spin and don't pat yourself up about it. Sure, I'm drive in ten years and parallel parking. Still that isn't me Get.
A quote from Supervalue Car Insurance to get ten percent off online.
And we'll even throw in forty euroin vouchers TEASNCS apply. Vouchers include two twenty euro or forty eurospent.
This car insurance is underwritten by AX Insurance DEACK super Value Financial Services STACK trading as Super Value Insurance is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.
Okay, the format and content of this episode obviously not like other Ologies episodes, So instead of Patreon questions, I just shouted a bunch of andy at the end that I thought you might want to ask him.
Can I rapid fire questions?
Yeah?
Okay, forming a nonprofit? How big of a pain in the ass? Was that?
It's a giant pain in the ass?
Okay?
Any tips for someone who's like I want to be a nonprofit, but I don't know what to do By red.
Tape, you gotta find every in cast. So we're based in California, and I found a website that basically laid it out for me what I needed to do. Okay, every state's going to be a little different.
I put some links on my website at aliwar dot com, slash ologies, slash Drawdown Design Project, but those are five oh one C three, dot org, Council for Nonprofits dot org, et cetera.
So find the one in your state and you just you just kind of got a barrel through it. There's this one form I had to file that got returned three times because I didn't. I mean, the reasons were insane.
And that's my nightmare.
I did this at the height of COVID, so like the I R s and the Secretary of State were like really slow. Anyway, it was a paneass, but it was fine.
What is your like dream scenario, like global outlook for you, like tell me the.
Human race or for these posters, for these posters. Wow, my dream outlook is that we sell them all and raise a bunch of money for our charity and then make more. I just want to make more of them. I have a you know, I have this list of my dream illustrators and artists that I want to make
cook posters. But my other big thing is like I just I don't know how I'm going to find out if it happens, But I just want someone to hang one of these on their walls and I want someone in their life to ask them about it, and then I want that to create a fun, non judge conversation about climate change solutions between those two people. So if that happens to anybody, please let me know somehow.
Making dreams come true?
Yeah, who do you look to on like a day to day or week teek basis for climate information? Like who are some of your climate activists, climate scientists heroes?
I really like the Volts substack my David Roberts. Okay, just google it if you want us abscribe to it. That's really great information. I really like reading Rebecca Solnitz's pieces in The Guardian. She seems to absorb a lot of information that then she kind of digests for the reader, but she also has a kind of pragmatic and positive outlook, like I do. Definitely How to Save Your Planet, which
is a great podcast. Those are the main ones. There's a ton of other resources out there, and a lot of them, like it kind of depends on your personality what you're looking for, But I would kind of caution people from overloading themselves on this kind of stuff, Okay, Like I'm interested in it. And since I started working on this project, I really wanted to be up to date on the science, just because I wanted to make
sure I was being as accurate as possible. But part of my goal in doing this is to kind of focus people on the things they can be doing without driving themselves crazy. I have a lot of friends who suffer a lot of climate anxiety, and they have a tendency go too deep and make themselves crazy. Like, there's there's a lot of amazing wonky people out there figuring out the details, Like I don't. I don't think everyday person needs to know every nuance of how we need
to upgrade the electrocrid. You need to vote for people who are going to take care of that.
Right, Any changes that you have made in your life since starting this project, like any any like infrastructure changes or personal changes, or if you had to give advice to someone.
Of things that they could help them.
Sleep a little bit better if they've got kids, or if they are just concerned about all the fish out there.
And yeah, well it really depends on your life and your level of privilege. Right, I'm fortunate and that I have time and the means to invest in some things that could improve my individual footprint. But you know, there's a lot of people in this world who are just trying to get through the day. As part of why I think it's so important to vote for people and
invest in leadership in this issue. But if you are the kind of person who has the ability to take to vote some of your free time to this as long as after you voted for climate candidates and you've sent money to organizations that are doing a lot of great work, those are the number one things you should do. After that. It's really about electrification, Like get nerdy about
electrifying your house. I know, my old natural gas stove died and I was like, I'm getting an electric stove, and so I had to dive into a whole pain in the ass situation of upgrading my panel. Like I didn't have a high enough amp panel to have an electric stove, so I had to get an electrician out to do that work. And then I could finally get the electric stove so I could eliminate that fossil fuels
from my house. As much as a pain in the ass of that was, like doing that work is great because I like that electrician now knows how to do that job. It's just a way of refocusing.
Everyone and any changes you've made diet wise.
Do more plants, Yeah, more plants. Most it's really about beef. That's the you know, just don't that's where it's at. That's where it's at, right, I mean, if you look at the charts, it's beef and farmed shrimp. Farmed shrimp, farm shrimp, like people should really, you know, there's all kinds of reasons to eat less meat, but like it's really, you know, beef and farm shrimp.
We also talked about shrimp in the Oceanology episode with Doctor Johnson. I previously thought they were the cockroaches of the sea, just plentiful to gobble. I had no idea about the bycatch issues and the mangrove destruction. So the Monterey Bay aquariumcfood watch dot org has more info on what the better farmed shrimp species and forces are. Some farms out there are doing it more safely.
More power to them. But anyway, now you know, damn.
Out one of our So it's worth noting that one of our solutions on our Cultivate poster is regenitive agriculture. So anyone, if there's any regenitive farmers out there now, they're mad at me because they're going to tell me that there their farm with their pasture land and they're grazing grass fed beef is actually a good thing, which is true. So regenerative agriculture is amazing, and there's a
ton of really fun opportunities to make farming better. But again, I think that kind of narrative is is distracting people from what's more important, Yeah, which is the big system changes that need to happen, and that can only be made possible by politicians and you know, corporate leaders like those people need to be pressured, whether it's through voting or other ways, to make the big changes. If you're obsessing about light bulbs, yeah, I think your energy is being put in the wrong.
Place, no pun intended, right, even.
Though listen, I changed all my light bulbs because I want to live my values. But I know that that's why I'm doing it.
M Hm. I just got solar.
That's awesome. I have panels also, they're so it's so fun. Well that's part of part of it. It's like it's just so fun. You go up there on the roof and I look at them, and I look on my phone and I see all the all the vaults coming into my panels. It's just fun. And a lot of these climate change solutions are just so cool. They're just worth doing even if we didn't have this problem.
Yeah, they're just on the cutting edge of technology anyway. That you know, the the notion that we are still digging into the earth to burn oil when we have all of the sun coming at us is bananas.
It's it's I'm trained as an environmental engineer. That's where I got my bachelor's degree. That was in the nineties, right, And at that time, there was no consensus around climate change. And I remember being shown the data as a student and the professor being like, is what's going on here?
And it not really being that clear. And so I've watched the issue evolve since then into where we are now, where everyone knows it's happening, everyone knows it's human caused, and everyone knows we have a limitum amount of time to do something about it. And that's not that long. That was only twenty five years ago. You know, this is moving fast, and so yes, we should stop digging
up fossil fuels. But we're not being punished for doing that, like it made sense at the time, and a lot of people's lives were made better because of fossil fuels. They're not evil. It's just an innert substance, right, and so we need to stop using them. But just practically speaking, it's a practical problem. It's not a moral one. Fossil fuels aren't evil. We just they're just bad for us.
Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
So when it comes to choices like solar, there are a lot of co benefits there too. The technology there is progressing pretty fast, and depending on whether you lease or buy the panels and your roof in your house, the reduction in your electric bill can offset the cost in just a number of years. So there are also tax benefits to it too. So if you're at all in a position to like remodel a bathroom or look
into solar, check out the solar panels. We finally got them a few months ago, even though our kitchen cabinets are from the eighties and they don't really close.
But we'll get to that.
The next thing that really needs to happen is the grid needs to be modernized and to be able to take in all the solar, and there needs to be storage installations so that we're storing all this solar as we can use it at night. But whatever, you should just do it. It's fun. It's just so fun.
We have the app to and my dad is like, ah, send me some screencaps. I want to see how much you're generating down there. And it also does ease the.
I'm going to use the AC, but I know it's coming from solar. I don't feel as bad, which is nice.
Yeah, don't feel bad though.
Don't feel bad.
It's hot.
It's hot.
People die in heat waves. Its stroke AC is you need the AC? I don't feel bad.
Yeah.
And just a side note, there was a great piece in The New York Times in June by Christopher Flavelle and callan Good Luck about how indigenous communities are affected by things like rising tides, melting ice, dried up wells, and rising temperatures, threatening not just subsistence or cultural practices,
but basic safety and survival. As infrastructures on reserved lands tend to be underfunded, so it's a lasting impact of being forced onto small tracks of sometimes the least desirable lands, and another example of how climate justice intersects with a lot of human rights issues.
We can't all go back to living off the land. It's just not where modern society is. Yeah, and also our standard of living is makes us healthier and saves lives and we live longer lives. We need to get excited about the fact that we can, to a certain extent, like have everything we have if we make these changes.
The fact that it is.
Feasible that we can make sweeping progress on this without everyone having to go back to pre industrial times, yes, is exciting.
And it's just true. There's another great resource. This guy saw Griffith. He's an Australian inventor and engineer, and he has this organization called Rewire, and he wants to focus everyone on how electrifying everything is the way to go. Like, let's get excited about this awesome world where everything's electrified and there's no more air pollution, you know, I mean climate change aside, it's just going to be better if we can do it.
I just I love that you taken and the excitement of a gig poster and a show you want to see, like gathering with friends and something that's cool and applying it toward cool shit that we can do to make the planet better and make it better for people like I guess that's how things get done, is no matter what the problem is. I feel like if you're acting from a place of optimism and hope, you're going to get more done than if you're acting from a place of like doom and shame.
Right, And I don't know if that's true, to be honest, We've had a lot of doom and shame when it comes to climate change. So let's you know, let's see if this works too, and maybe different things work for different people. That's part of it, right, Some people are going to get motivated by fear, but a lot of other people are gonna get motivated by getting excited about it and all the awesome things that are just co benefits to climate change solutions. There's this Currt quote, Okay
that is like a huge inspiration for me. So the quote is we are what we pretend to be, so we must be very careful of what we pretend to be. It's just it's just really the inspiration for this whole thing, because I think we need to tell stories that depict the future we want, not the future we're afraid of.
Oh jeez, that's a life lesson.
Yeah. I mean, if if we're telling stories about how terrible everything's going to be, I think everything's going to be terrible. But if we tell stories about how awesome it's going to be, maybe it'll be awesome.
That's really good advice. Andy, And I have to say that it's unlike you.
It is weird, right, it is weird. It is so unlike me. It's funny. I like it, but it's not. You know, that should give you confidence because I'm not coming from some place of pie in the sky optimism.
Yeah.
I've just like read the articles and done the research and read this amazing book that ever no one should read, Project draw Down, and like it's impossible not to come to the conclusion that like this can be done.
Ah.
That's really good advice.
So ask good friends for great advice, and ask smart climate scientists basic questions and then make something good out of it. Thank you so much to founder and creative director Andy Hall of the Drawdown Design Project for letting me hang out and chat with him about it. You can find out more at draw Downdesign Project dot org. Follow them immediately on Instagram at Drawdown Design Project.
We will be giving away eight posters this week.
You got to follow them. We are at ologies on Twitter and Instagram. I'm Ali Ward with one L on social media, do say hi. Special thanks to friends doctors Christine Corbett and Casey Handmer for hanging out in the initial meetings and giving some great feedback and ideas to Andy. Thank you to Aaron Talbert for admining the ologies podcast Facebook group. Thank you Shannon Feldas and Bonnie Dutch of the podcast You Are That for handling all the merch
at ologiesmerch dot com. Thank you Susan Hale and Noel Dilworth for all of the behind the scenes Ologies business. To Emily White of the wordery for transcribing episodes and Caleb Patton for bleeping them. Those are available for free at the link of the show notes. Thank you Kelly Dwyer who made my website aliwar dot com. If you need a website, her website is Kelly R. Dwyer and that's linked in the show notes.
She's great.
Thank you Hanka Rama and honestly the best husband I have ever had. Editor Jared Sleeper of Mindjam Media, and of course thank you to Stephen Ray Morris, who's also helping on our edited down, short kid friendly Smologies episodes that come out every two weeks, alongside zeg Rodriguez Thomas who also works on those. Nick Thorburn made the music. And if you stick around, I'll tell you a secret and is promised here's why I was in the hospital. Okay,
who get comfortable. I'll try and make it quick. So, over the pandemic, some of my regular schedule doctor's appointment got.
Pushed backed, right, So if you've heard other.
Episodes, you may know that I'm in this slim percentage of very exclusive uterine people whose ovaries just decided to fuck off decades early. So my ovaries pieced out, literally shriveled up, and stopped working sometime in my thirties. So I'm on a cocktail of estrogen patches and testosterone creams and such. But for the first few years they were giving me progesterone so that I would bleed like a
normal person. But they didn't mention that progesterone pills heads up, y'all, can make some people just straight up not want to exist. Anymore and can be reduced to a weeping pile of hair and tears, which was what happened to me. Not everyone again, slim percentage happened to me. So the doctors gave me a new kind to try. At the start of COVID. Once again, it was not good for my brain, and I stopped, and I hadn't been able to see
my obgyn again. Unopposed estrogen means maybe some endometrial cancer risks. So I went to my OBGI in last week and she was like, oh shit, you stopped taking the progesterone. I was like, oh, I did, but I couldn't come in here. Everything was so busy, and she was like, well, let's check you for cancer. So what we'll do is we'll scrape your insides out like a pumpkin and then we'll send some chunks.
Off to the lab.
Also, I should note there was a new resident doctor in the room and they were like, can he practice on you? And I was like, sure, man, you got to learn to be a doctor somewhere right That somewhere starts right now in my crotch, which I'm fairly certain was the first one this particular doctor had ever used a speculum on bless us heart.
Did it hurt the whole thing? Of course it hurt.
They scraped my insides, but yeah, I chewed on my tongue. I got through it. The nubie doc got some chunks for pathology. Thumbs up, way to go. The next day, however, I had the worst, weirdest pain of my whole life, so much pain, freakish spasm or something. Jared had to call my doctor. They were like, bring that lady in the er stat And then later I saw on my medical notes that the nurse on the phone had typed. In patient can be heard in the background audibly moaning,
which was accurate. Anyway, went to the er. People barfing everywhere, people bleeding, hallways filled with beds. Anyway, I had a bunch of ultrasounds, a bunch of pelvic exams. I had a COVID brain tickler for good measure, and they were like, well, that was weird, but you're fine.
Get out of here. So I was like, we'll do So.
I was woozy for a few days and then your pod mom, Jarrett shredded his meniscus.
That's part of your knee in.
Jiu jitsu and can barely walk, and so we spent the rest of the week in and out of MRI places and physical therapists and urgent care for him. What's my point? My point is cut me a little slack. This bonus episode is out a little late.
And this is.
Also just a super aside. I'm hiding this at the end. But every once in a while I'll have someone leave a comment.
Or a tweet about how politics.
And science don't belong together.
But literally policy is.
Like based on information and information and science, and I just a big, big sigh. Anyway, everything's fine. I'm in a hotel room outside of Detroit. I'm gonna go get a salad. I'm feeling better. Thank you for your patience, aren't you glad? You will never scrape a pumpkin in the same Also, you gotta let doctors practice on you. He didn't do the scraping. It was actually my obign He was fine. He was just a little nervous, but he was great. Okay, thank you for being doctors. I
appreciate it so much. Okay, bye bye.
Bye, pacadermatology, hobbiology, r doo, zoology, lithology, Yeah, ninology, meteorology, paratology, napology, zeriology, ethology.
Are you a Fishead too,