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Call to Climate Action: he Biggest Challenge and What You Can Do · Wildly Curious

0:43
Laura: Hello, and welcome to For the Love of Nature, a podcast where we tell you everything you need to know about nature and probably more than you wanted to know.
0:50
Laura: I'm Laura.
0:51
Katy: And I'm Katie.
0:52
Katy: And today we're going to talk about how climate change is the largest threat that our world faces right now, but we can all work towards a better future.
1:00
Katy: Now.
1:01
Katy: Before anybody shuts this off, or if people are rolling your eyes, just hear us out for a second, because we know that this topic often turns political pretty quickly, but we're not here to talk about politics at all, um, one of my least favorite things, yeah, science, and because my master's in park and resource management, I feel like there's a balance to everything, and Humans, we still need to live.
1:31
Katy: We just have to go about a smart way of doing it.
1:33
Katy: And right now we're just not.
1:35
Katy: Yeah.
1:36
Katy: At
1:36
Laura: all.
1:36
Laura: Yeah, and uh, We just kinda wanted to set up what this, you know, We're not, uh, Only briefly am I going to even talk about what climate change is.
1:47
Laura: Um, there's way more to it than what I'm going to talk about, but I'll at least set up the stage.
1:55
Laura: Then we're just going to each cover like one of the many, many issues.
1:59
Laura: We don't want to focus too much on this being like a Debbie Downer show.
2:02
Laura: And then we'll talk about some solutions.
2:05
Katy: Yeah.
2:05
Katy: Yep.
2:06
Katy: And then to think about it this way.
2:08
Katy: So I used, I use this argument or I use this, you know, scenario a lot.
2:13
Katy: Whenever people think about like, oh, or they say that the effect of, oh, well, this is natural, like, you know, patterns, weather patterns, everything is cyclical in nature.
2:22
Katy: But think of it this way.
2:23
Katy: All right.
2:24
Katy: We think of it, uh, if you're, you own your own home, which again, I say, you know, that's not very many of us.
2:31
Katy: Cause most of us are millennials and we have a mortgage or a rent.
2:33
Katy: And so we don't actually own our home, but besides the point, you move into your home and you're either a parent now and you'll completely understand that.
2:41
Katy: Or if you're not a parent.
2:44
Katy: Just imagine you have a bunch of destructive cats.
2:47
Katy: But as parents, we know our kids literally destroy our homes all the time.
2:52
Katy: All the time.
2:53
Katy: Whether it's intentional or not, they still do.
2:56
Katy: And regardless if they are too young to know better or not, it's still very frustrating.
3:02
Katy: Stuff on the wall, stickiness on every handle, crumbs.
3:06
Katy: The amount of crumbs.
3:07
Katy: Yeah, it's wild.
3:08
Katy: That are everywhere in a house.
3:10
Katy: It's, it's insane.
3:11
Katy: Furniture decorations are broken, the list goes on and on.
3:14
Katy: And somehow it's easy for us to get frustrated over our homes falling apart.
3:20
Katy: But when the world, like, literal world around us is doing the same exact thing, but ten times worse, that can actually kill us, somehow, like, that is what we're gonna argue over, whether it's quote unquote right or wrong, or, or, you know, it turns political for no reason there.
3:38
Katy: So, just kind of think of it.
3:40
Katy: I feel like this is
3:40
Laura: a lot, very much, Like the Boiling the Frog, that stupid analogy, but I do think it is kind of like that.
3:47
Laura: Whereas because things are changing in, relatively slowly, in our opinion of the way the world works.
3:55
Laura: That nobody really...
3:57
Katy: Yeah, you don't notice how gross your baseboards get until all of a sudden one day you decide to look at them and you're like, oh.
4:04
Katy: You know what I mean?
4:04
Katy: Like, that's always the thing that's forgotten about is the tops of the baseboards.
4:08
Katy: And that's always the one thing I always clean.
4:11
Katy: Like, every time I clean, that's something I clean.
4:13
Katy: Cause I just, I'm like, ugh, it gets so gross so quick.
4:16
Katy: But again, it's just, stuff starts to happen and we don't really notice it until things really start to happen.
4:23
Katy: And then people just want to argue about it.
4:25
Katy: So we're not here to argue about it.
4:27
Katy: We're a science show.
4:28
Katy: And so we just want to talk about the nerd stuff.
4:32
Katy: That's all.
4:33
Laura: Yeah, so, I'm just want to tee it off real quick, which is just to talk about what is climate change?
4:39
Laura: Because there is so much misinformation and miseducation about what climate change even is.
4:45
Laura: We learned, we've learned so much in the last couple of decades about what that even means.
4:51
Laura: But there are two things to think about here.
4:56
Laura: Weather versus climate.
4:58
Laura: So climate is the average conditions of an area over 30 plus years, so a little less than Katie and I's lifespan.
5:07
Laura: That is climate of one particular area.
5:10
Laura: So again, and again, average.
5:12
Laura: Weather is the daily atmospheric conditions.
5:15
Laura: So weather can look different every day.
5:18
Laura: Climate is just the average.
5:21
Laura: So climate change is the changing of these average conditions.
5:25
Laura: Global climate change is totally normal and has been happening since the beginning of Earth.
5:30
Laura: We're not here to argue that.
5:31
Laura: Of course climate changes, whether it's natural or human induced.
5:36
Laura: For example, the U.
5:37
Laura: S.
5:38
Laura: is warmer now than it was 20, 000 years ago.
5:40
Laura: When volcanic eruptions happen, climate changes.
5:44
Laura: El Niños cause climate to change.
5:47
Laura: So, there are, there,
5:49
Katy: this is, we're in an El Niño right now.
5:51
Katy: This is
5:52
Laura: totally normal.
5:53
Laura: And has been happening since the beginning.
5:56
Laura: However, by looking at the data of our earth's climate.
6:01
Laura: So looking at the average and the average and the average and the average, we expect this change to be gradual or cyclical, which is the argument that we hear so often, and that is not what we are seeing right now.
6:13
Laura: Human induced climate change is the change to our global climate driven by human actions, things like.
6:22
Laura: Mostly emissions into our atmosphere, amongst other things.
6:26
Laura: But we started to see this in the mid 1900s.
6:29
Laura: So around 1950s, we started noticing that climate change was happening at an accelerated rate.
6:35
Laura: Do...
6:37
Laura: Really, there's no other finger to point at but humans.
6:41
Katy: Um, Yeah, right?
6:43
Katy: Like, I mean, there is just there's some obvious key points that are no one else doing that.
6:48
Katy: But us,
6:49
Laura: um, as fossil fuels have been burned and more and more since the industrial revolution, it's finally it was catching up to us by the 1950s and, you know, fossil fuels are releasing greenhouse gas emissions, which traps heat in the atmosphere and causes all sorts of issues.
7:05
Laura: So, climate change and global warming are not the same thing, which I'm going to talk about in a little bit but that is what climate change is.
7:12
Laura: Climate change is a normal thing.
7:14
Laura: Human induced climate change is the, the us problem.
7:19
Laura: Yep.
7:20
Katy: So.
7:22
Katy: A A very big
7:24
Laura: us problem.
7:25
Laura: So, I then wanted to lead that into what is one of the major things that we're seeing.
7:31
Laura: Climate change.
7:32
Laura: Is not the same thing as global warming, although they are often used interchangeably.
7:37
Laura: And of course, global warming is very like hot, like topic politically, or when people want to get triggered, they talk about global warming.
7:47
Laura: Um, it's people when I get triggered, they talk about global warming.
7:53
Laura: I think that whatever scientists.
7:56
Laura: coined that term has got to be regretting his decision because everyone uses that, misuses that term.
8:03
Laura: Um, or like points to when it's snowing outside and is like, global
8:07
Katy: warming doesn't have, like, you just,
8:09
Laura: you shouldn't have ever had that exact term,
8:12
Katy: but, yeah, they had, they had one chance to like, make an impact, and then they choose the wrong words, and they're like, dang it, because now, now nobody takes it seriously, everybody just argues over it, it's like, son of a gun, should have picked a different word.
8:27
Katy: So,
8:27
Laura: like I said, they're not the same, though often interchangeably.
8:30
Laura: Global warming, global warming?
8:32
Laura: Climate change is one of the causes of climate change.
8:35
Laura: So, climate change, like I said, is a natural thing.
8:39
Laura: Could be from volcanic eruptions, or El Ninos, or whatever.
8:43
Laura: But one thing that can change the climate very fast and drastically is global warming, which is when greenhouse gases are trapped in the Earth's atmosphere and is causing everything to, like, that heat to bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, just like in a greenhouse.
8:59
Laura: Which makes everything just a little bit warmer.
9:02
Laura: Global warming is the average rise, or is the rise in the average temperature of Earth's surface due to human activities.
9:09
Laura: And again, global warming is a human induced thing.
9:13
Laura: That is not a natural.
9:15
Laura: At least when we use the term global warming, we're using it to mean human induced.
9:21
Laura: Of course, since the dawn of time, there have always been greenhouse gases in our atmosphere to help trap in that heat.
9:27
Laura: We need that.
9:28
Laura: So we're not frigid.
9:30
Laura: But when we talk about global warming these days, it's human induced.
9:33
Laura: That is what we're talking about.
9:35
Laura: The average temperature of earth's surface includes both the land and the oceans.
9:41
Laura: We can see a direct correlation with rapidly increasing temperatures since the industrial revolution.
9:47
Laura: Increasing at an unprecedented rate of 0.
9:48
Laura: 36 degrees Fahrenheit.
9:54
Laura: Or 0.
9:55
Laura: 2 degrees celsius per decade.
9:58
Laura: Okay, so that doesn't sound like a lot.
10:01
Laura: Um, you know, you're like, okay, like a third of a degree per decade.
10:05
Laura: So what?
10:06
Laura: But that is way freaking faster than we've ever seen that change before.
10:12
Laura: So again, when we're looking at averages and trends, we can expect to see a gradual increase as climate changes.
10:19
Laura: But it's been like, spike! Like a crazy spike.
10:24
Laura: And 2023.
10:25
Laura: It was the hottest summer on record, ever, anywhere.
10:29
Laura: Listen.
10:30
Katy: Average.
10:30
Katy: Freaking Texas, man.
10:32
Katy: It was a hundred degrees.
10:34
Katy: Over a hundred degrees.
10:35
Katy: Like, I kid you not, from May to, we finally got out of it, end of September, beginning of October.
10:42
Katy: It was, and I'm not talking like, oh a hundred, one hundred, two, oh it's over a hundred degrees.
10:47
Katy: No, I'm talking like so many days in a row where we're clicking 115, 110, and it just does not stop.
10:55
Katy: Yeah.
10:55
Katy: It just, it was so hot and so horrible this summer.
11:00
Katy: Yeah.
11:00
Katy: Just too much, and I love the Texas sun, but dang was that hot.
11:03
Katy: It was just too much.
11:04
Katy: Too much.
11:05
Katy: Yeah, oh,
11:05
Laura: yeah, nobody, ugh.
11:07
Laura: Unless you like decided to live in the desert, nobody has signed up for temperatures like that.
11:12
Laura: No.
11:12
Laura: So this raising in temperature.
11:15
Laura: Or the spiking in temperature, or I should say, is causing havoc for our climate and for our planet in many ways.
11:25
Laura: I mean, all you have to do is look up like effects of climate change, and there is a lot of them.
11:31
Laura: We are only going to hit on, like I said, like two.
11:34
Laura: But if you want to learn more, there's plenty more to learn about out there.
11:37
Laura: NASA has a great website about it.
11:39
Laura: NOAA has a great website about it.
11:41
Laura: United Nations, all of it.
11:43
Laura: But one of the things that I just really wanted to touch on was the actual temperature itself.
11:48
Laura: Like, what is the temperature itself's effect?
11:52
Laura: Well, increased heat exacerbates wildfires.
11:56
Laura: And boy, did we see that this past year.
11:59
Laura: Um, with Canada and Hawaii, as well as all over the world.
12:03
Laura: But by making everything so much hotter...
12:06
Laura: And that little bit drier, it extends wildfire season, which is making so much more burn for longer.
12:14
Laura: Which is then releasing more carbon into the atmosphere, or carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which is a greenhouse gas.
12:21
Laura: Which is exacerbating the problem even faster.
12:24
Laura: It's like a horrible cycle that we're just trapping ourselves in.
12:29
Laura: Um, and it is projected to increase.
12:31
Laura: Wildfire season, even in the rainy regions of the United States, like the Southeast that wildfires are expected to be more of a thing.
12:40
Laura: It's also, of course, correlated in an increase in heat related illnesses and death.
12:46
Laura: Like, where Katie was in Texas, people were dropping like flies because it's so hot.
12:51
Laura: Because your body is not made to take temperatures like that.
12:55
Laura: Um.
12:55
Katy: No.
12:56
Laura: On the plus side, I guess, to all this, is that there's an increased growing season when the temperature increases.
13:05
Laura: So there won't be as, the frost won't hit as soon, which means that you could grow for longer, which I suppose could be a good thing for an increasing population that needs fed, but it will drastically impact agriculture and ecosystems.
13:19
Laura: Like, if you're like, okay, well, we can just grow another round of whatever crop we're doing.
13:26
Laura: Will we feed people?
13:28
Laura: Maybe.
13:29
Laura: Depends on many other factors.
13:31
Laura: But, also the economic impact of that, positive or negative.
13:39
Laura: The water usage, like, let's say we want to grow a third crop of lettuce, which you've heard Katie and I talk about before, like, and how much we hate it out west, like just draining our river, like, let's grow another one and we'll just drain a little bit more water to grow that lettuce just because we can, um, or, you know, like maybe we would start, people would start wanting to convert more areas into agricultural areas, which is not what we need.
14:36
Laura: So, I mean, yes, increased growing season sounds good in theory, but we'll still have a lot of negative consequences.
14:43
Laura: So those rising temperatures, they're going to do a lot of things.
14:46
Laura: They're going to impact people.
14:47
Laura: They're going to impact wildfire season.
14:49
Laura: They're going to impact our plants and their growing season.
14:53
Laura: They're going to do lots of other things, including what Katie is about to talk about, which is affect
14:57
Katy: weather.
14:59
Katy: So, like Laura said, I'm going to be talking about weather.
15:02
Katy: So we have so much technology advancements and just the ability to communicate all that knowledge and weather information back and forth.
15:13
Katy: Like, we've never had.
15:15
Katy: That capability before I mean, obviously, before the Internet, we really couldn't whatever was happening across the world.
15:22
Katy: We didn't have instant information to be able to compare all this data like we have now.
15:27
Katy: But but now we do and now everybody can kind of, you know, I understand people can interpret data a little bit differently, but.
15:37
Katy: I would tend to listen to the subject matter experts.
15:40
Katy: If they're all saying the same thing, you would think that we would all agree, but, but we don't.
15:47
Katy: But yeah, so there's a lot of havoc that's brought on by that is brought on by these weather changes.
15:53
Katy: And it stands as a reminder that the consequences of our actions, they're not distance or abstract anymore.
15:59
Katy: And again, if you guys.
16:00
Katy: Need an example of, Hey, what's going on with the weather?
16:04
Katy: Like, again, this last year has been just insane.
16:06
Katy: Just in the United States alone, wildfires in one place, torrential floods in another place, insane heat.
16:15
Katy: We're going into an El Nino or we're in an El Nino right now.
16:18
Katy: And they're already predicting like incredibly cold weather here coming up.
16:23
Katy: So,
16:23
Laura: yeah.
16:24
Laura: And I think that's the thing too, when we start talking about Katie's.
16:28
Laura: Is that, okay, yes the heat is rising, which is affecting weather.
16:34
Laura: And it's doing that, you know, by changing weather patterns, essentially.
16:38
Laura: So it's not just like heat related weather.
16:42
Laura: It's also the opposite end of the spectrum.
16:45
Laura: Yeah.
16:45
Katy: Yep.
16:46
Katy: Yep.
16:47
Katy: And so Laura had talked about, so I'm going to talk real quick about the consequences of Laura already talked about.
16:52
Katy: The greenhouse effect and kind of all what's all going on there.
16:56
Katy: So bouncing off of what Laura had said The some of the consequences on the weather pattern patterns.
17:02
Katy: One is just the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.
17:07
Katy: So, like I said, it's extreme heat in one area, extreme colds, extreme wet in another area.
17:12
Katy: So, human induced global warming has ushered in It was extreme era of more frequent and intense extreme weather events.
17:19
Katy: Hurricanes like you've never seen.
17:21
Katy: Droughts, heat waves, floods have become almost like a new, a new normal for us.
17:27
Katy: Like we're becoming so, I don't know, what's um, what's what I'm looking for.
17:32
Katy: Yeah, desensitized.
17:33
Katy: So, these insane, you know, mudslides and stuff that are happening and this is the one of, when one area of the country experiences one, and the other side of the country is the absolute complete opposite.
17:47
Katy: That's whenever you start.
17:48
Katy: That's whenever scientists are like, yeah we start to have a problem here.
17:52
Katy: Warm ocean waters fuel the intensity of hurricanes and typhoons leading to more destructive and deadly storms.
17:58
Katy: So not only is it like, oh, yeah, we're seeing more hurricanes, but because the ocean is warming the intensity.
18:04
Katy: Is getting way, way, way worse than what it has been.
18:09
Katy: How, like we said earlier, prolonged heat waves, they endanger vulnerable populations and ecosystems.
18:15
Katy: Droughts are exacerbated as rising temperatures accelerate evaporation, drying up essential water sources.
18:21
Katy: Floods, meanwhile, are amplified by the increased capacity of warmer air to hold moisture, resulting in substantial rainfall in these areas.
18:29
Laura: Right, so as things are hotter, it's evaporating more.
18:32
Laura: That's causing a drought, but that water is all going somewhere.
18:34
Laura: It's going up into the clouds and it's going to dump it somewhere else.
18:37
Laura: Causing
18:37
Katy: flood.
18:38
Katy: Yeah.
18:38
Katy: It's got to go somewhere.
18:39
Katy: Yeah.
18:40
Katy: And so it's just, yeah, just way, way worse.
18:42
Katy: A second consequence on the weather patterns is a shift, shifting precipitation, like Laura just said, patterns and impacts on ecosystems, agricultures, so climate change has triggered a configuration of precipitation patterns, upsetting.
18:57
Katy: Equilibrium, ecosystems and agricultural practices, regions that were once lush are experiencing increased aridity, threatening native species that we tend to grow, like not the lettuce thing, not the whole lettuce thing, but things, things that we normally grow, like corn in the Northeast, for example.
19:15
Katy: I mean, they've grown corn in the Northeast for ages.
19:19
Katy: And it's starting to threaten those species.
19:21
Katy: Conversely, other areas are witnessing heavier, more erratic rainfall causing soil erosion, which is something that people don't think about as much when you have, oh, they're like, oh, we have a good crop.
19:31
Katy: Oh, we're gonna have lots of rain.
19:33
Katy: Soil erosion, though, when you get too much, yeah, yeah, it just floods them out, landslides and then because of all that, just general crop failures.
19:42
Katy: So such shifts challenge our capacity to feed the growing global population and threaten the biodiversity that underpins our ecosystem.
19:51
Katy: Another one is with the rise in global temperatures, sea level rises and obviously people, again, this is one that people will argue over, but melting polar ice.
20:02
Katy: I'm sorry, that's another one that should not be argued over.
20:04
Katy: If you look at pictures of anywhere from one One, I don't know, 20 years ago to now, it's a significant difference.
20:13
Katy: So as global temperatures continue to rise, the polar ice claps, glaciers are melting, of course, it accelerated late, right.
20:20
Katy: And this is leading to rising sea levels which are messing up coastal communities and low lying areas.
20:27
Katy: And again, because it's all cyclical and, and I mean, that's just like the basis of the water cycle.
20:44
Katy: Yeah.
20:45
Katy: And so.
20:47
Katy: Oh, no, no, no.
20:48
Katy: I was just gonna say, so as these things start to melt, because we're seeing increased temperature, it's changing the landscape, it's flooding the area, it's just like, it just keeps getting worse, and again, we have all of the evidence that's there, it's just it just keeps getting worse.
21:05
Katy: People are choosing to ignore it.
21:08
Katy: So an emphasis on the relation of like weather changes to human well being in the environment.
21:13
Katy: So let's just talk about that for one second.
21:15
Katy: Like the emphasis on the weather, like the weather changes to human well being in the environment.
21:20
Katy: Because I mean, I don't think people, okay, so we talked about the crops and everything, but I don't think people quite understand.
21:29
Katy: Like the food scarcity issues that we have across the world and the issues that we have there, the water resources and just public health in general.
21:38
Katy: So, like, weather changes.
21:40
Katy: It does pose a multifaceted threat to various aspects of our lives.
21:45
Katy: 1 that I don't think several, I should say that.
21:47
Katy: I don't think people.
21:48
Katy: Quite think about one of the most immediate concerns, of course, is the impact of food scarcity, climate induced weather extremes, such as prolonged droughts, erratic rainfall, extreme heat, disrupt agriculture systems and reduce crop yields.
22:02
Katy: This results in food shortages, increased prices, which.
22:05
Katy: Frickin chicken eggs, or just everything, and in some cases, there have been famines vulnerable communities, particularly those in developing countries, they end up bearing the brunt of these consequences, unfortunately.
22:20
Katy: Well,
22:20
Laura: it's not even just developing countries, but, I mean, we should do a whole other episode on just, like, uh, Food scarcity.
22:28
Laura: Or, well, that, and just how, environmental issues impact.
22:33
Laura: Um, just poverty areas, it doesn't have to be like countries, it can even just be here in the United States.
22:40
Katy: Yeah, like pockets, like we have, um, Okay, Lord, what's it called?
22:46
Katy: Food deserts within cities and things where there's just no grocery stores and stuff.
22:51
Katy: But I mean, the shifting water weather patterns too, it strains on water resources.
22:55
Katy: So like out in Texas all of our water resources come from man made lakes and people forget that so much.
23:03
Katy: Like 30 percent of our water usage down here is just for landscape.
23:09
Katy: Like it's just irrigation, which.
23:12
Katy: Blows my mind because we're a drought state, we're already predicting like, if we don't slow down, if we don't start doing stuff, like we're going to have some big water issues by 2050 and people are like, I got to have a green lawn though.
23:26
Katy: Like, they just, they don't think of it that way.
23:29
Laura: They turn on the tap and there comes the water, not like, it has to rain, it has to rain for those lakes to fill up and
23:37
Katy: get water.
23:38
Katy: And, and people don't see it as like, like they, cause I hear it all day, every day that, well, if I'm paying for it, then I should be able to use it.
23:47
Katy: Like that's fine.
23:48
Katy: No, that's not the point.
23:50
Katy: Like, yes, if you're willing to pay for that green, green lawn, great.
23:53
Katy: However it's limited here.
23:56
Katy: Like it's very, very limited and I don't understand why so many people here in Texas don't see it.
24:04
Katy: That's fine.
24:05
Katy: The writing on the wall and, and states such as like California and stuff that have just, or in the Southwest in general the water, just resource constraints that it's just drying up while we've talked in the rivers episode about the Colorado River and the effects that it's going to have and Texas is going to be hit by that too.
24:24
Katy: As long as, I mean, Many other states and the repercussions are rippling effects that that's gonna have or that just
24:30
Laura: rich people shouldn't be able to be the ones that get all the water because that mentality of like, right, I pay for it, then I can use it.
24:37
Laura: Well, if there's only so much bucko, yeah, like only
24:40
Katy: so much of it have all the water.
24:43
Katy: Yeah, yeah.
24:44
Katy: Just because you want to pay for it.
24:46
Katy: That doesn't mean anything.
24:48
Katy: Well, and on that note then.
24:49
Katy: And so that ends up being it.
24:53
Katy: The, I think 1 of the most troubling is the realization that climate related weather changes.
24:58
Katy: Is only going to further exacerbate existing social and economic inequalities, which is exactly what we were talking about, because the burden of these changes way disproportionately is, held by the marginalized and disadvantaged communities who often have the fewer resources and less capacity to adapt to these situations.
25:17
Katy: For instance, low income communities are frequently located in areas.
25:21
Katy: Vulnerable to flooding or extreme weather events where housing and infrastructure tend to be inadequate.
25:27
Katy: When disasters strike, these communities face greater devastation and a slower recovery.
25:32
Katy: There are still places in New Orleans that, like, whenever, yeah, that have just still never come back.
25:39
Katy: And that's how many years after Katrina, Hurricane Katrina happened, like, it's been so long.
25:44
Katy: And there are still places that just haven't recovered.
25:47
Katy: Inequalities in access to health care and resources also mean that marginalized populations are less equipped to cope with health consequences of weather changes from a variety of things like heat stroke, you know, not, I mean, down here in Texas, I know, and I know I keep using Texas as an example, but it's because I see it, like, look at over the summer, how hot it was and people like their AC just conking out like, Or the opposite.
26:10
Laura: And then like when you, when you guys had that crazy cold the other year and it blew it up.
26:16
Katy: Yeah, and it blew up our, I mean, that's a whole other thing or how disastrous our power grid is, but I mean, and that was the complete opposite is like our, you know, power grid didn't have the capacity to withstand the winter.
26:31
Katy: And so pipes were freezing over and that caused all kinds of issues.
26:35
Katy: And so we had so many deaths from that.
26:37
Katy: Not just from people who died like in directly related to like.
26:43
Katy: crashes or whatever on the roadways.
26:46
Katy: But also we had quite a few deaths.
26:48
Katy: I know down in Houston, at least from people that were trying to get warm and turn on their gas stoves and they died from that horrible.
26:55
Katy: Um, Yeah.
26:56
Katy: And, and so, and they're, and especially like in elderly populations too.
27:01
Katy: I know there was a few different stories of elderly that they lost power and then they didn't really have anybody to check on them and they passed away because just nobody was there to check on them.
27:12
Katy: And they lost, they lost power.
27:14
Katy: So yeah, so in terms that just economic disparities, disruption of agriculture, water resources, just everything.
27:22
Katy: Yeah.
27:23
Katy: I feel like because so many, so many in the middle class and upper class tend to control a lot of the narratives and the stories that are going out.
27:35
Katy: I don't think enough of the stories are going out of the people that are going to be hit first, which are those that are in the low income communities, like the ones that are go that are hit the hardest all the time, I don't feel like their stories tend to get out as much as what I feel like it should or could at least,
27:53
Laura: the one thing is that so DC is a floodplain, um, and it has been flooding more and more over the last few years.
28:02
Laura: So, like, at least the nation's capital, where everyone who should be voting to do things.
28:08
Laura: Should be, yeah.
28:09
Laura: It's literally flooding out, man.
28:10
Laura: Like, there are areas, like, when it rains hard that you, nope, can't go there.
28:16
Katy: Yeah, but again, it's just people just don't, people turn, again, turn that into political instead of being like, hey, maybe we have a real problem here.
28:25
Katy: Like, maybe.
28:26
Katy: This isn't just political, like, this is, you can have an opinion, but it is still a bad, it's still an issue guys, like, Or
28:34
Laura: even if, even if, even if you don't want to change it, We still need to work on mitigation at the very least.
28:45
Katy: Yeah, but there's no reason.
28:47
Katy: There's no reason to not change it.
28:49
Katy: Okay, because this goes back.
28:50
Katy: Okay, this goes back to my whole degree, which is finding that balance because a lot of these people that are wealthy, they're invested, investing in all sorts of things.
29:01
Katy: All right.
29:01
Katy: And when one thing crashes, yeah, something else is going to go up, but there's always a balance.
29:07
Katy: And so if you want to make more money, And things start to tank, everything's going to start to tank.
29:15
Katy: When our economy starts to tank, you're going to only lose money.
29:18
Katy: Like it's not going to, how can I say this?
29:21
Katy: It's not gonna, I'm trying to think if there's any negative impact that people could see from just caring, like, do you know what I mean?
29:36
Katy: Like people just don't want to change it.
29:38
Katy: But even like the mega wealthy that.
29:40
Katy: Typically lean to not wanting to do anything.
29:44
Katy: Like, they're only hurting themselves.
29:46
Katy: I mean, just Yeah,
29:46
Laura: but I think that's probably how a lot of people get to be that way.
29:49
Laura: Is because you are lacking empathy.
29:52
Laura: Yeah, but That's the only way you can be that rich.
29:52
Laura: Yeah,
29:53
Katy: but at the If you dive deep into like, you know, who's At the government level who's in like the department of agriculture who has ties with different like Monsanto all these different things When the environment and the climates and everything starts to go haywire like all that stuff starts to go crazy Like yeah prices are gonna go up prices are going up because it costs more to do everything And so it's just yeah, you're just shooting yourselves in the foot time and time again.
30:30
Katy: So So on all of that note though, so then what can we all do?
30:37
Katy: To change or help this stuff.
30:41
Laura: Yeah, yeah, cause I, of course we know guys that, I mean, most of you who are listening to this have heard this before.
30:48
Laura: I, I, there's probably, it's not new to anybody, maybe some of the details, but we also know that nobody's gonna do anything if it's too
30:59
Katy: inconvenient.
31:01
Katy: Oh yeah, yeah, but again, and that's finding that, that.
31:04
Katy: Balance of like, we need to survive as humans.
31:08
Katy: And we talked about it some in the green energy episode that we did, um, about there just needs to be a balance of like, yeah, reduce your carbon emissions.
31:17
Katy: In the lifestyle changes that you can, but I mean, the people who are so drastic as a like, Hey, we need to do drive all electric cars or we need to, you know, completely reduce water consumption and stuff like we still need to obviously use water.
31:32
Katy: We still need gasoline.
31:35
Katy: Like, there's no way for us right now.
31:36
Katy: Like the amount of.
31:38
Katy: Gasoline that producing plastics use.
31:40
Katy: So unless if you're really going to, you know what I mean?
31:43
Katy: Like reduce your gas intake.
31:45
Katy: I mean, there's so many different ways.
31:47
Katy: Like we tell people for a long time, and I'll just use the unnamed water utility that I work at for an example, like for a long time, you know, the go to water conservation language that a lot of people say is like, uh, like, you know, turn off your shower in between, like.
32:04
Katy: Be like, shampoo your hair, you know, and conserve water that way.
32:09
Katy: But whenever we're just talking about, like, economically reducing your water bill, like, doing that.
32:18
Katy: Save such a small amount, such a small amount of water.
32:22
Katy: Like it really doesn't like that stuff doesn't have an impact.
32:25
Katy: Now, not watering your lawn 80 bajillion hours a week.
32:29
Katy: That definitely helps.
32:31
Katy: But we actually found like, I mean, just from an economic standpoint, the biggest way for people to reduce their water bill, because down here we have combined utilities.
32:39
Katy: And so our trash is on our water utility bill.
32:43
Katy: The biggest way that we found for people to Reduce their water bill is to get a smaller trash can because part of that fee goes to having a bigger trash can that you pay more for, and so you produce less waste.
32:54
Katy: You can get a smaller trash can and you actually save a lot more money and so, but you also have to give out a lot, a lot less waste.
33:03
Katy: You know what I mean?
33:04
Katy: Like, you have to throw a lot less stuff away.
33:05
Katy: You have to recycle.
33:06
Katy: You have to be smart about it that way.
33:08
Katy: But again it's all about a balance because everybody's not gonna.
33:11
Katy: Yeah.
33:13
Katy: There are some extremists that are people like I have known somebody who Was like while the water is warming up in your shower put it in buckets and then save it to go Water your garden.
33:24
Katy: Nobody's gonna do that.
33:25
Katy: Like who's who's gonna have the time or That's, I'm sorry.
33:30
Katy: That is way too much effort for my ADHD self to like, Oh my God.
33:36
Katy: To be just a water, some extra plants, like, no, that's too much.
33:40
Katy: So I mean, be, be smart about it.
33:41
Katy: Like, do you want to leave, you know, the shower running?
33:45
Katy: And then go do some chores and then come back.
33:47
Katy: No, I mean, just be smart about it.
33:49
Katy: But I know down here in Texas, the biggest way to conserve water is just to cut back on your watering and how much you're watering your lawn.
33:56
Katy: So, I mean, there's small lifetimes, lifestyle changes like that, that you can definitely make.
34:00
Laura: I mean, there's all sorts of ways.
34:02
Laura: I would say, you know, if you're really thinking about what would be the first steps of what you could do, you could always figure out like what even is your carbon footprint if you're interested in all of that.
34:13
Laura: Like, go to a free calculator online, figure out your carbon footprint, and figure out what's the part, what's the stuff you could do to make things better.
34:21
Laura: Or like, a lot of, here in Maryland, there's all sorts of incentives as a homeowner to like, you know.
34:28
Laura: You can do things to your house to reduce your carbon footprint.
34:31
Laura: Like, significantly.
34:32
Laura: Like, insulate your home better, and get different HVAC stuff, and like, all these things,
34:37
Katy: and that will save you money.
34:38
Katy: There's a ton of rebate programs, yeah, there's a lot of rebate programs out there that'll, uh, like EPA, they have a carbon footprint calculator, I just looked, and yeah, so the EPA has one but there's all sorts of like, uh, the, energy star saving things and you can get rebate rebates back.
34:55
Katy: For a lot of those programs.
34:56
Katy: I know again down here in Texas and the unnamed water utility that I work for.
35:01
Katy: We, we have a program that because toilets use the older toilets use a ton of water whenever you're flushing them.
35:09
Katy: And so we have a program that you can, it's a voucher program for Okay.
35:12
Katy: Those that qualify, you can exchange your toilet for a, like a low water use toilet.
35:18
Katy: And I mean, and that sees a significant, you know, difference as far as whether it's going to break, but even per flushes of the amounts of gallons you can use.
35:29
Katy: And so we do a voucher program, but there's tons of rebate programs too, that if you just look at your local city or just Google like city rebates,
35:37
Laura: our electric utility will actually give you money.
35:40
Laura: Off.
35:40
Laura: If you have certain appliances that are energy star appliances.
35:44
Laura: Yeah.
35:44
Laura: So I would say like, yes, lifestyle choices as far as like everybody should be recycling and everybody should be doing certain things like, you know, trying to drive less and walk more and all that, which we all know about that stuff is so minor and yes, every day actions absolutely do matter.
36:01
Katy: But yeah, they add up
36:03
Laura: for sure.
36:03
Laura: Like I, I think if you can.
36:07
Laura: And you can afford it, or you're trying to do something more than that, would be to like, figure out your energy efficient, like make your house energy efficient.
36:18
Laura: Make your vehicle energy efficient.
36:20
Laura: Like the bigger things that are using more resources.
36:24
Laura: Like your home.
36:26
Laura: That would probably be a really good.
36:27
Katy: Like a dryer.
36:29
Katy: Right?
36:29
Katy: Dude, yeah, dryers use up so much electricity, it's insane.
36:35
Katy: Like, that was one, and I Yeah, I didn't realize how much dryers used until I was actually in Australia and they showed us like,'cause they were like, yeah, we're just gonna hang your, like, hang our clothes up to dry unless you absolutely have to dry it.
36:49
Katy: And we were like, what?
36:50
Katy: And then they showed us like how much a just a dryer actually uses it.
36:55
Katy: And it's wild the amount of electricity it uses that it really shouldn't use that much.
37:00
Katy: Like you really wouldn't think yeah, that it would use that much.
37:04
Laura: And then I feel like, you know, a lot of this like.
37:06
Laura: What can we do to help climate change?
37:08
Laura: Again, this is very much a, uh, Like a socioeconomic, cultural, I mean like, Of course we're giving you guys solutions for people who can do those solutions For U.
37:21
Laura: S.
37:21
Laura: people, not necessarily people in third world countries I mean, I think that the burden Because the burden falls on the lower income, it is up to the middle and upper class to find the solutions.
37:36
Katy: Yeah.
37:38
Katy: Yeah, and again, though, we have the capacity to do so, like, whenever you have to buy something new, try to buy one that's, you know, something that's energy efficient and just make, make this, make a smarter purchase or just don't buy as much crap.
37:55
Katy: God, I mean, that, like that
37:56
Laura: alone, like a more, like a thing though, like, I feel like our generation in particular is very much,
38:03
Katy: Just don't buy as much stuff?
38:04
Katy: Yeah.
38:05
Katy: Oh my gosh, yeah.
38:06
Katy: Well, I mean, we're millennials, we can't afford anything.
38:09
Katy: Yeah, that's true.
38:09
Katy: Anyway, we're drowning in debt and can't afford a home.
38:13
Katy: It's fine.
38:14
Laura: We're
38:20
Katy: all just buying used things, or like, Yeah, right.
38:22
Katy: that were used up for a second.
38:23
Katy: We're fine.
38:23
Katy: We're fine, everyone's fine.
38:24
Katy: Um, Well, anyway, did you have any other ones?
38:26
Katy: I mean, I have a bunch of lists of other random things, but.
38:29
Katy: I feel like, yeah, it's
38:30
Laura: all stuff that listeners have heard.
38:32
Laura: Just do what you can with the time that you can.
38:36
Laura: Know that your actions do matter.
38:38
Laura: But also put your money where your mouth is.
38:40
Laura: And if you, you know.
38:43
Laura: Yeah,
38:43
Katy: and I mean, there are, like, if you do want to get, you know, involved in from a government political standpoint.
38:50
Katy: I mean, even the best, honestly, I think the best, the easiest thing for you to do is get involved at the local level because there's tons, every city out there has like committees for, um, like urban planning and transportation, you know what I mean?
39:05
Katy: Like they have a group, yeah.
39:07
Katy: Yeah, they have all kinds of groups and stuff like that at the city level that make decisions and that you can have a voice and an impact there.
39:14
Katy: And there's all kinds of different things.
39:16
Katy: I mean, even crap, even trash cleanup, but at a river, you know, there's tons of small little things to do
39:23
Laura: association or yeah, like if you want to sit on a board somewhere and
39:27
Katy: help make decisions.
39:29
Katy: Yeah, I mean, and so there's a way that I mean, that has a much bigger impact on.
39:36
Katy: Then, and then trying to, I guess, go...
39:38
Katy: Lobbying because people will ask what can you do to help?
39:42
Katy: And if you just Google things like that, oftentimes you'll see people being like, okay, well, here's like all the biggest laws that are being passed.
39:50
Katy: And it's like, what are we supposed to do is like common people, you know what I mean?
39:53
Katy: Like, I have no control over all that really.
39:56
Katy: I mean, yeah, you can elect your local people.
39:58
Katy: But other than that, I mean, it's really.
40:02
Katy: Out of our hands for a, for a lot of it and so, but you can have a much, much bigger direct impact you personally, if you just take it at the local level.
40:11
Katy: Yeah.
40:12
Katy: So we try to make it a little more positive.
40:14
Katy: Yeah.
40:15
Laura: I mean, we can make a change.
40:16
Laura: It's not too late.
40:18
Laura: And it's, you know, there's, I mean, um, because we know more now, we've got a lot more ahead to make decisions about.
40:27
Laura: It's, and.
40:28
Laura: Yeah.
40:29
Laura: It's not like we, this isn't a, well, we're at the point of no return here, guys.
40:33
Laura: Screwed now.
40:34
Laura: I mean, yeah, things suck,
40:35
Katy: but we can turn it around.
40:38
Katy: Yeah, because it's only going to keep getting hotter in Texas.
40:41
Katy: It's only going to keep like, we're only going to keep seeing these more drastic and drastic changes until people finally decide, like, maybe we should do something.
40:50
Katy: So we all start doing something now.
40:52
Katy: Hopefully, hopefully we can get everybody else on, on board as well.
40:57
Katy: All right, everyone.
40:58
Katy: Well, if you want to reach out to us on Twitter and Patreon to support us so we can keep bringing you episodes week to week.
41:05
Katy: I mean, I know I would appreciate it.
41:07
Katy: I'm sure Laura would too.
41:09
Katy: Yeah.
41:10
Katy: Just yeah.
41:11
Laura: Yeah.
41:11
Laura: now that Halloween is over and people are already starting to think about Christmas.
41:15
Laura: You should really check out our store because we have amazing Christmas wrapping paper.
41:19
Laura: We have wrapping paper.
41:21
Laura: Plug it every time guys until Christmas.
41:24
Laura: Get our wrapping paper.
41:26
Laura: It's
41:26
Katy: amazing.
41:27
Katy: All right.
41:28
Katy: Thank you guys for listening and go ahead and tune in next week.
41:30
Katy: Um, I don't even know what episode it is next week.
41:32
Katy: Well, listen and find out and be surprised just as much as I will be.
41:36
Laura: Yep.
41:37
Laura: Hopefully, you know a little bit more and you're a little bit more curious.
41:40
Laura: Tune in next week, everybody.
41:41
Laura: Bye.