- Speaker #0
Have you felt the weight of climate change creeping into your daily life? Maybe you've noticed the wildfires in California, the floods and hurricanes across the country, or that our air doesn't smell as clean anymore. But it's not just the planet that's at risk. It's our homes, our health, and our futures. What if I told you that climate change is not just an environmental issue, but one of the biggest human rights issues of our time? That it's deeply tied to racism, classism, and inequality. and that the people who are most vulnerable are being hit first and hardest. As someone who recently lived through the LA wildfires as an LA resident, I had a wake-up call. If we don't act swiftly, there may soon be nowhere on earth that is safe. But here's what gives me hope. I believe creativity is the key to solving the world's biggest problems. That's why I'm launching a brand new series on Unleash Your Inner Creative, where I'll be talking with activists and experts about how we can use our creativity to tackle the most pressing issues facing humanity. And today, we're starting with climate change. Welcome to Unleash Your Inner Creative with Lauren LaGrasso. I'm Lauren LaGrasso. I'm a Webby Award-winning podcast host and producer, singer-songwriter, public speaker, and creative coach. This show sits at the intersection of creativity, mental health, self-development, and spirituality. It is meant to give you tools to love, trust, and know yourself enough to claim your right to creativity, pursue whatever it is that's on your heart, and change the world. To help us kick this series off, I'm bringing on somebody who I trust deeply, climate expert and nonprofit leader, Patrick Murphy. He is the director for donor stewardship at Delta Institute, which is a 501c3 nonprofit that collaborates with communities to solve complex environmental challenges. He's also an advanced certified nonprofit professional with 15 years of experience, and he's pursuing a PhD in organizational leadership. But beyond all that, Pat is Timmy, my fiance's best friend, and has become someone I truly love and trust. He's helped me understand how climate change intersects with the issues I care most about and why it's first and foremost a human rights issue. From today's chat, you'll learn how climate change is directly connected to social justice issues like racism, classism, and inequality, why this crisis is not just about saving the planet, it's about saving ourselves. The practical steps that you can take right now after you leave this conversation, to make a difference and why, even when it feels overwhelming, there is still hope and you have a role to play. This conversation shifted my perspective and I know it will do the same for you. Okay, let's get into it. Here's Patrick Murphy, or as I like to call him, Pat. Okay, Pat, I am so happy you are here. First of all, just for anyone that doesn't know, Patrick Murphy is Timmy, my fiance's best friend. So he's my best friend through marriage, almost marriage. You know, basically we're there. And we also have the same birth chart. So we call each other twins because we're chart twins. We're both Aquarius sun, Cancer rising, Sagittarius moon. You know, it feels great to be in the presence of my twin right now. So thank you for being here.
- Speaker #1
Ditto. Pleasure's all mine. Thank you. Thank you for having this conversation, too. Really appreciate it.
- Speaker #0
Oh, my gosh. I appreciate it. Pat, quickly, before we dive any further into the conversation, could you just say what exactly you do in the realm of climate change and where you work?
- Speaker #1
Absolutely. I work with Delta Institute. We are a 501c3 nonprofit organization with a mission to collaborate with communities across the Midwest to solve complex environmental challenges. In my role there, I am the director for donor stewardship. So I am involved in a lot of the fundraising for grants and holding special events and engaging volunteers, communications, marketing, all that kind of stuff. So I am all about helping amplify the work that many of my far more talented colleagues on the programmatic team actually do when it comes to the environmental preservation and remediation. helping amplify the work that we do at Delta.
- Speaker #0
So something I've been saying on the pod for a long time is we need creative solutions to the world's problems. And we need a pretty creative one or a number of creative ones for climate change. And it is a group project. So today you and I are going to talk about what's going on, why you should care, you listening should care, and what you listening can do about it. So Pat Murphy, to me, is a climate change expert. He will argue me on that one. But He is a climate change expert to me. He's the person who's closest to me, who's most knowledgeable. And you're just going to walk us through and we're together going to have a conversation about it. I know some stuff, but I am still relatively new to my deep dive into information on climate change and how I can use my creativity to be part of it, a part of climate action. So just setting the stage for that. So first off, Pat, what is climate change? And why should someone listen and care?
- Speaker #1
Climate change on a big level really talks about changes that we see in temperatures of the oceans, soils, atmosphere, things like that. But it's not the changes that we see on seasonality basis. You know, there's some climate deniers who might say, oh, well, here's a snowball. You know, it's not there's climate change isn't real or anything like that. What we know is that there have been periods throughout this planet's life cycle. There's been about six of them. where we've had severe issues of climate change. And we're in the sixth one right now, where the climate is changing so rapidly that we can't keep up. There's a lot of gases, greenhouse gases, that we are pushing into the atmosphere. And that means that where we live is continuously getting hotter every single year. So every year for the past 10 years in a row have been the hottest in recorded history. And there's no indication that's going to slow down. So climate change is, like I say, it's a group project because this is a global crisis that affects all of us. It's a humanity and human-made crisis that impacts every aspect of our lives. So why we should care? Boy, my goodness.
- Speaker #0
You're like, where do I start? Because for you listening, this is Pat's literal life mission.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah. There's so many. reasons to care. You know, I think that many of us are experiencing it in our own ways. Like, we see what's happening with the wildfires earlier this year, right? And that's caused a lot of people to wake up and realize the realness and the severity of the issue that climate change is not theoretical. It's not something that's happening 50 years from now. It's happening now and it's impacting people's lives. It's impacting our lives. It's impacting the lives of the people that We want to bring into this world future generations. It's impacting the lives of our neighbors. So it does that through a variety of different ways, not just through wildfires. We're seeing that on a global scale, climate change is making water disappear in some places, and it's also making water appear in other places. So we have severe instances of drought, we have severe instances of flooding, and that is causing pretty significant challenges. and bottlenecks to fighting for natural resources. And we see that we are losing whole entire species at a rate faster than we've seen in tens of millions of years. The planet is crying out for us. It is crying out for our help. And this is something that it's all on us too. The planet will live on without us. It might go through a bad period of time. But this is our home. This is our common home. This is what we have to care for and steward for. And if we don't, we're only hurting ourselves in the long term.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. And the reason why I feel so hyped up about this is because I, through being in LA through this, have seen the fact that if we do not do this, there will be nowhere on earth that is safe for humans or other beings. I mean, some animals I'm sure would live through it somehow, but You know, if we don't take action, literally, we are giving up our one and only home.
- Speaker #1
Exactly. Yeah, we talk about going to Mars and things like that, which, you know, fantastic. But there's nothing like this planet that we have here. I have been taking my call to action. I'm an artist at heart. Yeah. As you know.
- Speaker #0
That is an amazing musician, writer.
- Speaker #1
But for me, one of the reasons that I started caring, I'm also Christian. And it was actually Pope Francis who... wrote what we call an encyclical that was called Laudato Si. It's on care for our common home. And it was a call to all the peoples of the earth to take action because he really highlighted that it was caring for nature, the beauty, the gifts that we've been given, whether you're a believer or not. But it's also about protecting those who are the most vulnerable among us because climate change oftentimes disproportionately impacts the people who are. most at risk when it comes to economic disadvantages, environmental racism, things like that. And for me, that injustice has been what's been really propelling me because I want to be a part of the fight against environmental injustice and environmental racism.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. I want to dive into that more, but just an example I'm seeing even here in LA, the people who had money and means to flee were able to flee, and those who didn't were either ... trapped with terrible air quality or like if they left they would obviously have to go live with somebody else but that's like not really a long-term solution so there's a very real thing happening here where classism is involved racism is involved can you speak a little bit more to that how are these things intertwined
- Speaker #1
They are as inseparable as can be. Looking at it from, at least for our country scale, it's going to be different in different areas of the world, but for our country, so much of our country, where we live is based off of the color of our skin. You know, here in Chicago, where I'm from, there's a history of redlining. If you were black or brown, you could not live in this sort of area. And over time, what happened was more polluters, more industry came in and they wouldn't want to put it in the more affluent wider neighborhood, so they would put polluters and other types of industry into communities of color. And over time that means that if you are living in one of those communities, then you are more routinely exposed to dangerous chemicals that are being put in the air. You are being more routinely exposed to what we call brownfields as well, which are vacant, polluted lots. Most times when you look at communities of color and you look at the history of America and you look at the pollution that those communities face, it's alarming. Like I said, it's inseparable. So when we talk about climate justice, I can't pull that threat apart from racial justice. They are so interconnected. You can't have one without the other. We also see that on a global scale, us being in the Northern Hemisphere, we see a lot of pollution being and a lot of economic disadvantages and non-opportunities going to the southern continents when it comes to climate change and whatnot. There's a lot more drought happening in the southern hemisphere, a lot more flooding as well. And so there is also even on that global and international scale, we still do see that. That's what I am mostly driven by.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. And it's just striking me as you're talking that everything is the same everywhere. Yeah. The same way when one person hurts emotionally, I believe the whole world feels that in some way, because I really believe all of us are connected energetically. And if one person is suffering injustice, we all are on some level. With this, there's no disconnecting from it. Okay, if LA is experiencing climate change related wildfires, that is going to affect the entire planet. Like no one on this planet is immune to it. We have to take care of everybody, especially the people that are incurring the worst of it. That's so, so important. So I do want to go into a few of the climate change terms we discussed because I think it's related to these topics. Climate change refugee. We brought that up briefly. What is that? Where are we seeing it?
- Speaker #1
Climate refugees. And some people might disagree with that terminology. Some people might also say environmentally displaced migrants. There's different schools of thought. It all depends on international law and whatnot. But essentially, what we see is when we have increased drought and when we have increased flooding and wildfires and things like this, we have people asking themselves, should I move? And they'll move because of those situations. But we also have several already documented and existing situations where fighting for natural resources has resulted in. people moving from one area to another, exacerbating geopolitical tensions and conflicts which have been laying dormant. But when the more that we have fighting and scrapping of our resources because of droughts and flooding, the more that we have people leaving their homes, the more that we have even wars starting over this. People will often say that it was the droughts that appeared in the war. Jordan, and even in some areas of Syria where we're led to the Syrian civil war. A lot of the conflict that we see right now happening in sub-Saharan Africa is also a result of this. And we also see people who are living in Pacific Island states like Kiribati, Tuvalu, Vanuatu. These are all states that will more or less likely, they're planning to be submerged underwater within the next century. And these are people who are asking themselves, I know that my culture will inevitably be gone because I am losing my connection to the land. Do I leave now and resettle with my family or do I stay here? I think the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, they account for about 120 million displaced people. That includes climate refugees. And they say that within the next 25 years. That's likely to balloon to 1.2 billion.
- Speaker #0
Climate refugees alone.
- Speaker #1
All refugees, but the growth is mostly going to be exacerbated by the environmental catastrophe. So it is all refugees. But it's also, to what I was saying earlier, it's a little hard to disconnect if I'm fleeing because of war or is it because of the drought that started the war? It's all the same.
- Speaker #0
They're all connected. I mean, everything is connected, you guys. Another term we wanted to go over, climate anxiety, or as I like to call it, climxiety. I've been experiencing quite a bit of that these past few weeks. I'm well acquainted.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, it's natural. It's a realization. Once you start getting into this stuff, it could get pretty scary, as you and I have talked about. And for me, who's been doing this for years now, I also still feel that on a regular basis and many of my colleagues do. It inevitably begets questions like, am I doing enough? Are we doing enough? Should I have kids? Should I move? All of these kinds of questions that are deeply existential and really hard to ask yourself. It comes up frequently. And what I would suggest about it, if I were to, is number one, recognize we're not going to solve everything overnight. You know, afford yourself a little bit of luxury where you could say, all right, you put your best foot forward in addressing these matters, and that is the best you can do. is to help inspire others to take action, all these other things. But when it comes to climate anxiety, you manage it the way that you would any other kind of anxiety. You know, it's just that it stems from this newfound...
- Speaker #0
Existential dread.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, yeah. Because it is scary. I mean, would you say that you have experienced this yourself, like even before the wildfires? Would that be something that you would have experienced before?
- Speaker #0
It's deeply unfortunate. I cared about climate change. I cared about the earth. But the reason why I think it's so important to tie it to people and to your actual life is because I didn't realize the impacts it could have on people. Like when people would bring up climate change, I'm like, well, I care about people first issues, really. Like I was more into like fighting racism, working against sexism, you know, civil rights, those kinds of things. And I had heard about obviously like the tie between. classism, racism, and climate change. But it didn't hit me that this is the ultimate people issue because we have one earth and there will be nowhere on earth that is safe for anyone if we don't do something about this. So I will say like the past three weeks of my life, I have had more of a struggle with my whole worldview. than I ever have before. And this is something I wanted to talk to you about. But it's like, once we know this information, how do we maintain our innocence and our hope and optimism, while also knowing how dire it is? Because I know I haven't been my most useful self to people these past three or four weeks. And I know some of that I was actually in the thick of trauma. But now it's like, I want to balance the truth with belief. How do you work through that?
- Speaker #1
It's not always easy. Let me first preface this by saying that. Because these are very real challenges. And the deeper you go, the more alarming it can get. However, this is that big group project. And the more we find ourselves finding more and more people who are willing to jump into the group project on a daily basis. Now you. Yeah. Welcome aboard. Thank you.
- Speaker #0
I'm so happy to be here.
- Speaker #1
And with that, we are finding a new sense of community that we are all in this together. And this, you know, cue the high school musical song, you know, but we really are all in this together. And we will all experience those same emotions and those same fears. And they're often going to be triggered by, you know, geopolitical events or... The new report that the United Nations just released, and it says we're all doomed by this year, whatever. We're able to connect and inspire each other because when you're able to have your set of heroes, the people that you look up to and be like, they're doing it. They're the ones that are putting the fight. That's my role model. That's who I want to be when I grow up. When you find those kinds of people, that's that boost of optimism that you get that you need to keep going. Let's also just be real, the alternative kind of stinks. The alternative sucks. It's just sitting and wallowing and not doing anything. I'm not saying that from a sense of, if you just experience something, you need to let yourself feel that, you need to be authentic with yourself, you need to be genuine with yourself, care for yourself, all those other things. But channeling that into action, like so many of our greatest heroes have done in the climate justice movement or otherwise... When you start to find your heroes who fought for equity and are fighting that sense for equity, that's where you move things forward. You know, Hazel Johnson, for example, is considered the mother of the environmental justice movement. Dr. King, while he's not necessarily the environmentalist that everybody would think of frequently, it's that same interconnectedness when we talk about the fight for racial equity that connects to environmental justice and climate justice as well. So find your heroes, find your community, and realize we're all in this together. Put in the best faith forward that you can do. You will improve the world. It might not be every single space on the globe itself, but you're doing your fair share to uplift your community in the best way that you can.
- Speaker #0
I love that. Does that have to do with climate resilience? What is that term?
- Speaker #1
I wouldn't immediately equate it, but I guess it has the heart. connected to it.
- Speaker #0
We're all about heart here, Pat.
- Speaker #1
I love it. I love it. That's why I'm here. Over the past several decades, there have been calls for within the environmental movement to first focus on mitigation. We're mitigating the impacts, for example, or we are adapting along the way. The more severe that the case went and people weren't listening, we adapted. Now, when we talk about climate resilience, It's a recognition that climate change is here, and we as communities need to build up our resilience to face catastrophic threats. Because even for the work that's being done right now to reverse and stop climate change, we will still have to deal with the consequences of the impacts of the past several decades. That's a fact. So how can we build up our resilience? A lot of people in... that work in this space like I do, might look at it from the lens of, okay, we know that flooding is an increased risk. There's a more frequent thousand-year flood. We're seeing those much more frequently. What can we do to increase our resilience against that? Okay, let's invest in more green infrastructure, which is like a new way of approaching collecting stormwater so that it doesn't flood off into the streets. Or can we build resilience on farmland by increasing the farmland soil health? By the way in which we do agriculture, can we integrate more climate-smart agriculture practices so that way when there's more droughts and when there's more flooding, farmers are able to bounce back from that more frequently? So when we talk about climate resilience, it's about the ability to bounce back. It's about the ability to weather the storm that is inevitably coming. And yeah, to some extent, it is about recognizing that we as community members, we don't want to leave anybody behind. So that goes back to talking about the racial equity component. It's about the economic equity component. So it's about building up resilience all across the board, economic resilience, climate resilience, all of those different things.
- Speaker #0
And what I really heard you saying is like people using their creativity to think of different ways to do this for the changing climate. I love that. Obviously, it'd be great if the climate would just not change, but that's up to us. So, okay, not to get dark, but like, what is at stake right now? If someone's listening and they're like, okay, this is all sounding good. I think I want to get involved. Like, why do they absolutely need to get involved with whatever their way of helping is right now?
- Speaker #1
What's at stake? Everybody's going to answer that question a little bit differently. You can look at it from the lens of what's at stake for me, or what's at stake for the planet, what's at stake for my community, etc., etc., etc. I would say, when you look at what's at stake, for some people, they would answer that being the home that they want their children and grandchildren to have. And when you think about what your grandchildren one day might be, you know, 80 or 90 year old man, what that might look like for them. What can we preserve today for future generations? For some other people, we talk about what's at stake. Like I said, we have experienced... a traumatic biodiversity loss. So if you care deeply about the animals, the plants and the trees and all those good things, those are disappearing at an alarming rate. So when we talk about what's at stake, everything.
- Speaker #0
Life on this planet, period.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. Am I answering the question?
- Speaker #0
I'm not sure. I think you're answering the question. I just like, I want people to know like, now is the time to get involved because it's coming for you. No matter where you are, you are affected or will be affected. by this.
- Speaker #1
You know what's funny and related to that is what you shared just a few minutes ago about how you didn't connect that it was about people or that this was news to you and you should have put the pieces together sooner and all that stuff. That is exactly my story. That is 1 million percent my story because for the longest time, I didn't get what was at stake with us either. I, for better or for worse, it feels silly admitting it, but for me, for the longest time, The environmental movement seemed like it was people that cared about trees,
- Speaker #0
which I love. But like, but exactly like it felt hokey. Can I be honest with you? I was like, there are people who are starving. There are people who don't have health insurance. There are people who are getting discriminated against because of the color of their skin. I'm like, I need to focus on that. That has been my focus always. When I realized that's what was happening here, it was like.
- Speaker #1
oh light bulb like this is the most people-oriented thing you could do i had that exact same switch go off in my head like the exact same because it it often felt like a movement that good people caring about trees and parks and forest preserves love it but i was like that's not what i wanted to devote my time to right i don't it's not that the stakes weren't high it felt like something for like hikers and campers and i'm like i don't camp like it felt like
- Speaker #0
you know, fishermen would be really, you know, and it was like, it just didn't connect with me that it was a people-oriented problem.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. And once I came to learn how wrong I was about that, the more that I realized, oh, wow, if I want to devote my work and my life to addressing social equity, the climate space is inevitably where it's at. That is the fight to be having. It's funny that I have that exact same realization. And part of that is on the environmental movement itself. The environmental movement in its earliest days is rooted in being exclusionary. You know, it was often excluding people of color. But it's also, you know, I think that some people, again, myself included, several years ago, would look at the climate movement and think,
- Speaker #0
oh my god how do i get i don't know i don't know climate science i don't know policy i don't know what can i do i i feel powerless it's taking over the world like how am i supposed to be able to do that and i think that for me once i once i realized what was at stake and and that's that's addressing the woes of social social justice at its core once i realized that i was like okay well i can actually I had been applying, I had been growing my career as a nonprofit fundraiser and marketer for some time. It's just now about me finding the right organization that I wanted to work with. An organization that I knew would be intentional and marry that connection between the environment and how it impacts people's lives. I knew I wanted that. So I was like, I'm going to wait for the right organization to find. And then you just start finding all of these like Super cool people who are doing like super cool things like all like you talk about creative people like can I go on a mini rant?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, mini rant me.
- Speaker #0
I've met so many people who are doing like creative things like there's this startup that my friend Janice is starting. She's a black woman and she realized that she wanted to have more natural hair products for black women because it's often made with synthetic products and it's better for the environment and it's itchy and all these other things. And so she's been working in the past several years on developing, using initially invasive plant species to develop all natural braiding hair products for black women. I'm like, that's that's one of the coolest things ever. I mean, she also went to school for it and whatnot. But she she saw that and she was like, I want to come up with a creative solution around it. And people are just going for it.
- Speaker #1
Oh, my gosh. Put me in touch. She should come on the pod.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, that should be great. It should be great. People who are, there's more and more people who are getting into micro-remediation, which is using mushrooms in ways in which we never really thought of before. Mushrooms that might be used for even replacing like styrofoam that you might see in packaging. So people that are applying it there. People who are like, could we just discount and discontinue this rampant consumerism? And could we just have like... you know how we have book libraries can we have tool libraries instead so that way people can come just do tools it was like yeah i'm meeting so many cool people who are like finding their way to address the climate movement while still being their their full rich and creative selves and it is so rewarding that's the fun that's the fun that's you might get swept up in the doom and gloom in it but when you find people who are being innovative and being their true creative selves oh
- Speaker #1
Yeah.
- Speaker #0
That's what it's about.
- Speaker #1
Well, and the tool I gave people in the last episode, just to riff on what you're saying, is if you're listening and you're like, I don't know quite how to get involved, take what's most painful about this issue to you, your greatest pain point when it comes to climate change. Take your greatest talent or your greatest joy and find the midpoint between those two things. So, you know, one thing I'm doing is having this conversation with Pat. And I want to start writing music about this. I started writing a song called The World is on Fire. And there's many ways that you can be involved. It's not just always the traditional, I'm going to go pick it. That's great if that feels right and helpful to you and you want to be a part of something like that. But there's a lot of ways you can get involved that are beyond the traditional things you think of when you think of activists.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, right on. I have like the four-step approach.
- Speaker #1
Yes, please. So we're going to go into this now. So what can people do about it? Because we don't want to just like dump on everyone. We want to give you actionable tools that you can use today to start your journey toward making a difference in the world when it comes to climate change. So what are these four different ways that you've mentioned that people can start taking action?
- Speaker #0
For me, I think I found that there's four levels that you need to approach it really quickly, and then I'll get into each one a little bit more. There's an introspective level. There's a personal level. There's a community level. And there's a global level. Those are the four levels we're dealing with. So for introspective, it is about getting informed. It's about listening to podcasts like this. It's about reading books that interest you in this topic. Even if it scares you a little bit. If it's like, I don't exactly know it. Find something that's of interest to you. If it's a biography of somebody. I have some books I can recommend as well to introspecting. nourishing yourself and educating yourself on the matter so that way you feel more informed because the more informed you are the more the more Power you might feel number two is that more personal level? That's when we talk about the daily actions around your home and in your life that might help Reduce waste and emissions and things like that things that might be like can you? switch your energy consumption into utilizing renewable energies, wind and solar and things like that. Even if you're a renter, even if you have old infrastructure, there's a lot more programs that might be available to you that you might not even know about. So just Google and stuff like that. You know, composting, starting to recycle more. Can you bike more? All of those different things that definitely are about taking action and reducing your own carbon footprint and helping connect you to the movement. Those are great actions for you. I Ausha, though, that that's where a lot of people stop. That's where a lot of people feel deflated because what you find out over time is you're not making the kind of impact that you feel like you need to be doing given the severity of the matter. So that's what brings me to the third one. And this is arguably the most important. I'll let you decide. Third is on that community level. Maybe your city or your town has an environmental board. Where they're asking about, you know, what are initiatives that we can do to create scale for waste reduction? Or can we integrate more green infrastructure into our community? Can we have more tree planting initiatives? Can we come up with an urban forestry management plan?
- Speaker #1
And how would you find that out? Like, where do you recommend people go?
- Speaker #0
It's going to be different for everybody because there are some cities and municipalities that do these kinds of things. And there are some where you might have to go to the county level. So what I would recommend is first start off just poking around, Googling for your city on the municipality's website. Look for, do they have a climate action plan? Do they have a greenhouse gas inventory? Do they have an urban forestry management plan? You know, do they have these kinds of things? And you can also call them up, call up your town hall or whatever and say, hey, I'm interested. Do you have any resources? They should point you in some direction. I'd be really disheartened if they said no and just hang up the phone. But first, just poking around, Googling. If you can't find it on the smaller level or if you live in too small of a town, for example, look at the county level. Your county level will, at the very least, likely have some waste initiatives to reduce waste. You know, Google's your friend in this. Get involved there. But then start poking around city websites and start calling them, too. I promise you they're not as scary as they might seem to pick up the phone and call them. But also, you know, there are maybe there are corporate initiatives that if you work in corporate America and you have an ESG group or maybe you're man, maybe you don't know. Ask your manager, do we have an ESG group? There are things that you should start looking for in which you can create scale on a local level. Because one thing that I always knew, but I don't think I knew knew. until like the past couple years past five or so years you know people always do say that change you know happens on the local level and i always knew that but i don't think i really it really sunk in until more recent years so tell me why that is because when people say that i'm like yeah yeah does
- Speaker #1
it really why is that true because i'm still skeptical because i feel like over the past
- Speaker #0
10 or so years, we've had a lot of turbulence in our society. We've had political upheaval. We've had civil unrest. We've had a whole pandemic. And the thing that we have found to be most resilient and connected and to lose the least amount of steam is local community. There have been massive fluctuations on a national level. There have been massive fluctuations on a global level in many regards, too. But when you talk about your local community, not to say that it's perfect, but these are people that are your neighbors. They're a little bit easier to access. And it's that sweet spot of being able to actually create change that is scalable enough. We see that local communities... even in times of turbulence and pushback, if they want climate action, they'll go for climate action. And they'll do their part. Where I work, for example, we'll often have communities coming out to us and saying, we want to take climate action. We need help. We don't know how to start. So they'll come to us and we'll partner with them. And, you know, the process usually goes. We'll do what's called a greenhouse gas inventory where we track where all of their emissions are coming from. Is it coming from buildings? Is it coming from the transportation system you have, etc., etc. We'll do that. We'll work with the community. We'll talk with the community to see what most matters for your vision of what your community can look like in a more sustainable world. And we'll put together plans for here's action item number one that you can do. It's going to be different for every community, but for some it's more charging EV stations, it's about switching over to renewable energies, or it's about hosting more small farmer field days or things like that. It's going to be different for every community, but that's the beauty of it because you're able to go in. and influence much more on a community level than showing up at DC and saying, you know, I want this kind of change. Not to say that you shouldn't do that, because that's number four. That's number four. Beautiful transition. Yeah. So number four is when we're talking about the biggest scales of change that we can make is on the global level. It's even beyond the national level. So when we're talking about voting with your wallet. For example, when you are purchasing things and influencing others to purchase things, or when you're showing up on election day, midterms, it's easy for you to look and see, does the candidate that you want to vote for, are they aligning with the climate issues that matter most to you? That could be picketing and protesting. It could be voting. It could be all of those things. But I guarantee you that... If you were to, like I said, if you were to just do that one thing, you're not going to feel it. You know, you're not going to feel it. So find that thing that matters most to you. I think you got to do a little bit of each of the four.
- Speaker #1
How often should we be pulling from each bucket? Like every single day for all of them?
- Speaker #0
Part of your life. It's a part of your life.
- Speaker #1
Make it part of your morning routine. Absolutely.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. No, it's use whatever energy that you have now that you're listening to this. Maybe you're listening to this and it doesn't make any sense or it's interesting. Or maybe you have been severely impacted by wildfires or drought or whatnot. Everybody's coming at this at a different place right now. So take whatever energy you have to fuel your first steps of action. If that is, I'm going to read a bunch of books and I'm going to switch over to solar. Awesome. But at least take some action. Get started. Don't bite off more than you can chew. Pick a book and start a composting program in your kitchen. Or pick a book. and more sustainable detergents that you use for laundry, you know, things like that. And then let that next action feed into your next one. Let it inspire the next one so that you're continuously coming up with ways to create that more sustainable, equitable society that at least I envision.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. And speaking of the last one, the pillar number four, like what are the best ways to interact? with and encourage our leaders to take action on climate change?
- Speaker #0
It is going to be a little bit different depending on where you're listening from. But you know, you probably heard it a million times already, where it's you're calling your legislators, you know, so if that is your state senators and state representatives, as well as your federal ones that are in Congress, be sure to be doing that. I would also encourage you, there are a number of publicly available resources from nonprofits and from some public agencies, especially at the smaller public level, like municipal level right now, that are available for you to connect. If you already have people that you voted into office that you think are doing a great job when it comes to climate, for example, awesome. What else can you do for There are, for example, United Nations initiatives, for example, where you can look into if you're really motivated by the refugee issue, for example, look at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. It is mostly it is mostly about showing up and voting, calling, calling,
- Speaker #1
and let me just say one thing. I called the other day, not about climate change, but about some other issues that I had an issue with. And it was so easy. You just Google, like, how do I get in touch with my senator? You can call the switchboard, but that's kind of difficult. I would just say, Google, like, how can I get in touch with my senator? It took me to the webpage for the Senate. It had the two senators that I have in my district. I called them, left a message. It was as simple as that. It can be really overwhelming because it's like, oh, I don't want to talk to someone. But like, first of all, for me, nobody picked up. And so I just left a voice message. Couldn't have been easier. And you can even either write up. or like look up a script, there's a million things you can do to make it less daunting for yourself. You can also email them, but it's not as hard as you would think. When I heard like call your senators, I'm like, that sounds so difficult, but it's really not, especially come on 90s kids. We all called people. We bring back the skill.
- Speaker #0
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. I'll also, you know, shout out to, if you haven't gone to a protest yet, or... Not even a protest, but a march, for example. Usually going to be around maybe an Earth Day, or there's the People's Climate Movement, I think. I forget what exactly. You'll meet a lot of cool people there. And you know what? Oftentimes you're going to be asking yourself the same questions. Or they'll be a font of new ideas and inspiration for you, too. So, you know, shout out to showing up and protesting or showing up and honestly going to events to begin with. Make it a point to find Arbor Day in your community this year. It's always going to be last Friday in April. See if your community is doing it as soon as something like that. If you're calling your senators back to this, you know, calling our legislators thing about the wildfires, for example, and then you go back and you read one of the books, go back and talk to your senator about this other thing that you just learned about, too. When you're actually thinking about this now, too. It doesn't have to be just the thing in the news. That's also, you should do that. But they're on my phone. Yeah. You know, my legislators.
- Speaker #1
That's so smart. I love the idea of like giving your senator like a daily book report. Hi, Senator. Today I learned about blank. Just thought you should know and do something about it. Love,
- Speaker #0
Lauren. It's literally their job. So, I mean, yeah. Job.
- Speaker #1
I love that. You mentioned like meeting people and there's like cool organizations. Are there any specific climate action groups we can join that you would recommend?
- Speaker #0
Some at the national level, you know, Sierra Club is one of the oldest in the country. They have a lot of different ways to participate, ranging from, you know, political action groups to if you're just an outdoors enthusiast, all different kinds of ways to engage. So Sierra Club is one. You know, if you're in the Chicago area, I would recommend my place, Delta Institute. We have a lot of events that we're doing and volunteer opportunities as well.
- Speaker #1
And can they donate to you as well?
- Speaker #0
Absolutely. Yeah. We're a 501c39. nonprofit organization.
- Speaker #1
We'll put that at the link in our show notes.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, absolutely. So you will find that especially in metropolitan hubs, there's going to be a lot of environmental organizations. There are also in some more rural places too that might be interested in more land conservation and like soil and water conservation districts you can maybe get involved with. They're not as public volunteer facing. But my point is, is that no matter where you live, start Googling and just find a few places that you want to check out. Follow them on whatever social media platform you like. And then show up and be like, hey, I'm new. I know this or I don't know this. And I just wanted to help. And nine times out of ten, they'll come, you know, welcome, open arms, just happy to have you be a part of it, you know, so.
- Speaker #1
And it's okay. Like, I feel a little embarrassed that I'm just now taking this as seriously as I am. But I know that people from within. who have been doing the work like you aren't sitting there being like, tsk, tsk, Lauren, how could you? You're happy I'm here. And I think that's something for us all to remember. Like, it's okay to have a realization. It's okay to change your heart and realize something is important to you and be humble and admit, I don't know that much, but I want to help. In fact, it's quite beautiful to do that. And so if you're sitting there feeling like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I haven't been thinking about this. Please do not shame yourself. Like give yourself a pat on the back and a hug for the fact that you now get it. That's huge.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Cosign.
- Speaker #1
Cosign. Cosign from a twin. My dear friend, Trisha, actually, she's my mom's bestie. She is amazing. She actually like really wants to like get into environmentalism as her last part of her career. And she said if she can do this, she will feel like her life is fulfilled. So beautiful. But Trisha asks. What would be the most reliable research-based source for the public to access information regarding the honest facts of the current comprehensive status of climate change? I asked this question so I can present credible data, which can be fact-checked by the doubters. So I'm assuming Tricia maybe has some doubters in her life, and she's wanting to set them free with the truth.
- Speaker #0
There are plenty of resources that I can point you to. I will say part of it is going to depend on what aspect you are trying to convince people of. If you're trying to convince people, is climate change real and man-made or not? If we're really starting there, I think what you would look for there, first and foremost, you don't even need academic journals and whatnot. A lot of the doubters that I've encountered will recognize that corporations are responding to a lot of the changes in climate. When we see wineries and vineyards that are moving further south, for example, because the climate is getting hotter in some places. Or when we see that insurance companies, for example, are offering less or more expensive products to people in higher catastrophe zones.
- Speaker #1
Like what happened in California?
- Speaker #0
Exactly. Yeah. Happened in California because of the wildfires and it's happening in Florida because of the flooding. It is happening all around. So there are, of course, academic journals. I think Nature is a good one that you should be taking a look at. There are also going to be a suite of resources and tools online. One of them is the the tree equity score that if if you do love trees like Lauren and I do, that's a good resource where you can. Literally put in your your zip code and it'll give you all this kind of information about air pollutants and treat You know access to trees and green space and things like that. There's also several tools that are online I might be able to share more of them later. I would suggest if you're just looking for who can I trust? There are a lot of good nonprofit organizations 501 C 3s, especially that are doing some really good work. For example, my organization, if you want to learn more about like downloading green infrastructure guides and tools and the benefits of green infrastructure, or you want to have more in-depth understanding of soil health and all the nutrients that go into that, we're an authority on that. There are also going to be some people who might poo-poo those ideas. So my last bit of advice is if you want this to be Like that capstone of fulfilling your life and want to do it. And you have naysayers in your life. I would also encourage you to not get hung up by the naysayers. That's something I've let go of a long time ago. Because I want to do this work. And I promise you, I promise you, there will always be naysayers. Not worth the energy. Yeah. You can channel that energy into something so much more productive.
- Speaker #1
So for you, you just recommend don't engage with that. Just move on.
- Speaker #0
If you're just trying to disprove that, you know, I'd say just move on. If you're trying to inspire other people to get on board with you, share your story, you know, share things that you've read and you've come across. Because ultimately, people who are digging their heels and, you know, digging their heels in aren't necessarily going to be responding to data.
- Speaker #1
Wait, but that's so true for even us, Pat. What changed our minds? It wasn't a statistic. It was learning that people were affected. Because we deeply love and care about people. And if that person cares about you and they can see how it's impacting even just your life. Trish, you know, they live part time in Florida. So she's affected by this. If she can speak to how it's affecting her life and my life, the people she loves, that should be a data point enough.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. Amen. You can come up with as many scholarly articles as you wish, peer-reviewed texts, all that stuff. But ultimately, if the people that are in your life aren't listening to you and how it impacted you along your journey, maybe they'll still be skeptical, but they know it must mean something if it's coming from you. So, yeah, what a good way to put it. What a good way to put it, Lauren. Well,
- Speaker #1
learn from the best. You know, my third grade teacher, Mr. Swansea, we're still in touch, been so important in my life. And he asked a question that, you know, broke my heart a bit, but I do think it's worth speaking to. He asked, are we too late to make any significant changes? He also asked what the most effective changes would be. I know you've said this is a generational project, but what's your take on that question? Are we too late to make significant changes? And in your opinion, what would be the most effective changes?
- Speaker #0
If I didn't feel like it was worth it, I would not be, you know, devoting my life to it. Yeah. That's not to say that I don't have moments of doubt in my career or that several other people in this space also have moments of doubt where you're looking at the science and it's like, oh, my goodness. The fact of the matter is, is that, you know, a lot of the science points us being in a bad space. We're not in the best space that we could be right now, you know, first and foremost. But I think we need to. for our generation, for the people who are alive and listening right now. We need to remove this burden of, can we solve this right now? Because we can't solve it right now. We cannot, at least not with the geopolitical wills as they are right now. But what we can do is slow the pace, come up with new ideas, sway more people for the long term, as well as The changes that we will make still will inevitably still improve our water quality, improve our air quality, will improve our quality of life, will reverse the negative impacts that we see coming from redlining and from environmental racism and things like that. It will create more homes for people who are fleeing wars and things like that. Will we resolve every single issue of every single greenhouse gas emission entering the atmosphere? No, we're not going to do that right now. Long term? Yeah, I think we still have the hope to. But ultimately, though, this is that generational issue. We need to steward the natural resources and the earth and the planet as it is right now so we can hand it off into better shape, into... Our children's hands and our great-grandchildren's hands. So that way, we're continuously improving it. It's so easy. It's so easy to get scared and worried and feel like it's all for naught. We encounter this so frequently. But the more that you look at the real-world impacts that you are having already, that's where you need to be looking at this problem from.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. You mentioned hope. and if you didn't have hope, you wouldn't be doing this. What is making you hopeful right now?
- Speaker #0
I still find a lot of hope in the examples that are set by others. I've had my fair share of people share to me that they felt inspired by some of the work that I do when I turn right back around at them and look at the work that they do. And I'm so impressed and inspired by the passion and the drive that so many folks that I've met along this way have also had. And if we look at them as, again, those people I want to be when I grow up, that's what gives me the hope. The hope of knowing that even though we do have this existential crisis, this big group project, and the odds are in our favor, I know that we got the right people on this planet to go to bat for. And It does feel like we're on the ropes a little bit. Don't get me wrong. But again, what's the alternative? It's not an option.
- Speaker #1
It's just not. You have to be hopeful. Be hopeful or die. Like, honestly, that's kind of how I look at it. Because we're here for a reason in this time. Like, if you believe in God, if you believe in reincarnation, if you just believe that, like, life is pretty impossible. Like, I think it was, like, 1 in 14 billion or... or trillion chance that you'd even ever be born. It's something outlandish. So just the fact that you are here is a miracle. So you have to be here for a reason. And I believe that reason for all of us is that we have the power to make an impact. And if we band together and form community and believe in each other and love each other and love our planet, we can do that. This conversation has truly, truly inspired me and made me feel more hopeful, honestly, than like anything in the last three and a half weeks. I have a question that most people will probably think I was high when I thought of, but I wasn't. And it's just something I want to ask. As you and I were talking, because we talked last night in preparation for this conversation, I had this thought, and I believe everything has energy. And, you know, that's why I talk to trees sometimes. Like, I believe that. there is a relationship there. And last night I was thinking of the earth and almost like personifying it and just wondering, what does the earth think of us? And energetically, how can we let it know we love it, we're sorry, and we're going to do our best to take care of it?
- Speaker #0
I think that you will find a lot of different traditions that have asked that question, and a lot of traditions that will answer that in various different ways. I mentioned earlier, for example, it was one of the Pope's writings that inspired me partially to get involved with this matter. And a lot of his introduction deals with looking at scripture and talking about how we care for the land, how we care for creation, and how There have been people who have intentionally misinterpreted scripture to discount that. But if you look at it, it's really talking about how it is our responsibility to care for creation in the Christian tradition. There's also a great book called Braiding Sweetgrass that deals with some native traditions. I forget the exact nation, forgive me, that deal with that same question about, I think it is. approach it from the lens of like it's um it's almost like a brother relationship that we that we could have with the planet and and yet we have almost forsaken it and that we have let that go um there are some people who will also look at it and say very objectively that the planet will outlive us one way or another we are exploiting it in a way that has never been exploited throughout the past several billion years But it will ultimately live far past us anyways. So I think that there's going to be a lot of different traditions that will answer that very differently. And I don't necessarily want to put my stamp on how I feel like it should be for anybody else. But for me, I've been trying my best to look at it from a lens that the planet is more than just a rock crawling through space. It is far more than that. It is something that is giving. It is something that is alive. It is something that is just so rich with beauty and with energy. And that it is, it's that we are all stardust. That concept that we are all born from stardust. So I try to look at it through that lens and realize the Earth is, it's our partner. And we are hurting it. We shouldn't be, obviously.
- Speaker #1
We should just tell it we love it and then do the right thing. Take all the Atkins we talked about today. We are stardust. And I know the earth wants to take care of us, so we have to take care of her and each other. And Pat, I'm just so grateful for, first of all, who you are in the world. Like, I could cry talking about you. You're just such a beautiful human being. And we're just lucky to have you walking in our midst.
- Speaker #2
But...
- Speaker #1
beyond who you are, what you do is also such an extension of your heart. And I know it's hard. And I know just from talking to you last night, I know it takes so much courage and strength on a daily basis. But thank you for what you're doing. I love you. And I appreciate that.
- Speaker #0
I appreciate that. I appreciate that. If only there were somebody that had a similar astrological chart that I could say the same thing about, right?
- Speaker #1
If only. Are there any final words you want to leave our sweet, creative cuties with?
- Speaker #0
I've really enjoyed listening, especially to the past couple episodes of you talking about this and the way in which you're approaching this. If anything, I hope that the message that I convey today to these listeners is that it's not all lost and that there is not only room for everybody, but there's a call for everybody. Everybody's good. This is that big group project. And if you are an artist at heart like me, there is just as much room for you. If you were the scientist or the policy buff or the engineer or whatever, we need everybody. So come on board, get involved, do one of those things. And yeah, and take it from there. And I can't wait to hear who else you have talking about this kind of stuff, too. I can't wait.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. I'm so excited for this series. I think it's so, so important. And I'm grateful to kick it off with you. Can't think of anyone better, frankly. My climate change expert,
- Speaker #2
Patrick Murphy.
- Speaker #1
But yeah, just so grateful for what you do and who you are. And you gave us so many tools and ways to take action. So it feels doable. I'm excited to see what we can do together. I believe we can change the world.
- Speaker #2
Thanks for listening and thanks to my guest, Patrick Murphy. You can follow Delta Institute at Delta Institute and get more information and donate to the incredible work that Pat is doing at delta-institute.org. That will also be in the show notes. You can follow Pat's personal page at PatrickMurphy09. We will also have a ton of resources in the show notes that Pat mentioned, so definitely check it out today because there's going to be a lot of good things for you to further your knowledge. Unleash Your Inner Creative is hosted and executive produced by me, Lauren LaGrasso. It's produced by Rachel Fulton with theme music by Liz Full. Thank you again, Creative QD, for listening. I'm really excited to continue this series. If you like what you heard today and you want to hear more of this, remember to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share the show with a friend and post about it on social media. Tag me at Lauren LaGrasso and at Unleash Your Inner Creative and I will repost to share my gratitude. Also tag Rachel. and Pat, so they can share as well. My wish for you this week is that you feel inspired and empowered to take meaningful action in your own way, knowing that this is a group project. Every small step contributes to a larger collective effort to make a healthier, more sustainable future for our planet and for us. I love you, and I believe in you. Talk with you next week.
