Soul Boom - Nobody Cares About Climate Change

Episode Date: May 21, 2026

Christiana Figueres joins Rainn Wilson to dig deep into fossil fuels, climate change, eco anxiety, spirituality, self-love, and what it really means to become “stubbornly optimistic” in a collapsing world. From the Paris Climate Agreement to her own battle with suicidal thoughts, Christiana unpacks the connection between personal healing and planetary healing, and why humanity’s future depends on changing our relationship with nature and ourselves. This episode explores climate justice, renewable energy, emotional resilience, mindfulness, activism burnout, and the spiritual path forward in a time of global crisis. SPONSORS! 👇 Cowboy Colostrum (promo code: SOULBOOM for 25% OFF!) 👉 ⁠https://cowboycolostrum.com/soulboom Quince 👉 (FREE shipping + 365-day returns!) https://quince.com/soulboom Nutrafol 👉 (Promo code: SOULBOOM for $10 OFF + FREE shipping!) ⁠https://nutrafol.com⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⏯️ SUBSCRIBE!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠👕 MERCH OUT NOW! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠📩 SUBSTACK!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  FOLLOW US! IG: 👉 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://instagram.com/soulboom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: 👉 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tiktok.com/@soulboom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  CONTACT US! Sponsor Soul Boom: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Work with Soul Boom: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Send Fan Creations, Questions, Comments: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Executive Produced by: Kartik Chainani Executive Produced by: Ford Bowers, Samah Tokmachi Companion Arts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I think it seems that no one cares about planet Earth because we're all being so attacked by threats that loom very, very close to us. In the United States, the economy going down the drain. war craziness, the craziness on all levels. Why are people not researching this? The pro-pollution side, the pro-environmental degradation side, the fossil fuel industry. Especially now with the war on Iran, everyone has realized it's pretty dangerous to have to import fossil fuels and especially have to transport fossil fuels. So there are many more countries that are moving over toward renew.

renewable energy that is domestically produced that doesn't have to be transported through any straight of hormones. Simplistic arguments are just so much easier. So much easier to peddle, so much easier to understand, and so much easier to adhere to. We have to be able to get beyond our simplistic thinking and understand that two realities can coexist, that we can hold them in equal standing at the same time. Hey there, it's me, Rain Wilson, and I want to dig into the human experience. I want to have conversations about a spiritual revolution. Let's get deep with our favorite thinkers,

friends, and entertainers about life, meaning, and idiocy. Welcome to the Soul Boom podcast. A quick shout out to our sponsors. Please support our sponsors and help support the show. Cowboy Colostrum. Just head to Cowboy Colostrum.com slash Soul Boom. That's 25% off when you use code soul boom at cowboy colostrum.com slash soul boom. Quince, go to QU-I-N-C-E.com slash soul boom for free shipping and 365-day returns. Nutrafall. Find out why Nutrafall is the best-selling hair growth supplement brand at Nutrafol.com. Spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L dot com. Promocode soul boom. Enjoy the show. It's a question of immediacy. Those issues are more immediate to people than things like the future of the planet, the future of the quality of life, of children, or of human beings and other

beings yet unborn and yet not here. So it is very much a question of immediacy, both in time and in geography. So whatever is a threat to me personally is going to absorb my attention much more than a threat, even if that threat is immediate to another person around the other side of the planet. So we're stuck in this very narrow, small, constricted attention bubble, and we're completely consumed by that. But whenever we, environmentalists, try and say, hey, this is urgent and immediate, you know, reducing carbon, and changing our relationship to the environment, you know, the Paris agreements, you know,

international relations, climate change, the science of climate change. Anytime we try and make that like immediate and pressing, then the other side very effectively says, you're alarmist. It's going to be, yeah, okay, there's going to be some adjustments. We've got time. And they've been very effective at painting people as hysterical. And it's kind of an easy position to be like, oh, Calm down, kids. Greta Thunberg, having your meltdown. Calm down. Everything just okay. Yeah, because they're using and abusing that problem of the immediacy, right? And our constricted attention bubble. And they know that it's easier for people to deal with what is here right now. And so they step into that space, if you will, between my experience today and my understanding

of my experience and everybody else's experience tomorrow. There is a cognitive space between those two. And they step into that and absolutely wham themselves through and don't allow for us to understand that there is a very, very deep nexus between those two. They just cut that connection off and they force people to focus only on the today, the right here. Yeah. It's sad because we as human beings, our common humanity is actually what brings us together. It's not about my individualism.

It's about our common humanity. Sure. But for them, of course, the advantage is that they just pull the rug out from everything that is close to our common humanity. And they more or less intimidate people into just thinking about their individual today experience. Yeah, I would say the forces of anti-environment, I would call them Earth haters, are. are really winning the PR battle. And that's why when I work with Climate Basecamp, Project Basecamp, we're now called on messaging, you know, climate science to mass culture through out-of-the-box storytelling. I feel like that aspect of climate work is just crucial because we've lost it.

You say very effectively in your book, like, you can't like choose to not believe in the science of climate change. It's like choosing to not believe in gravity. It's just real. We are taking carbon from the Earth. We're burning it. We're putting it in the atmosphere. It's creating a heat blanket, period. And that's going to cause a lot of different kinds of destruction.

That's just, it's just science. You can simulate it. You could create a little model of planet Earth somewhere and just create the exact scientific simulation. So, but they have so successfully messaged this thing. And what can we do to turn that around? Well, it seems to me that where we have failed, honestly, is in standing exclusively on the science.

And the science has to be our basis, but it cannot be the ceiling of our messaging. It has to be the foundation. We have to really understand the science. But it cannot be the ceiling. We have to build on the science and then build on top of that, everything that is much more human. We have to humanize our narrative.

Why are people not researching this? The pro-pollution side, the pro-environmental degradation side, the fossil fuel industry, simply say, oh, yeah, Christiana, well, Obama just bought a house on the beach in Martha's Vineyard. So if sea level rise were really an issue, why don't you go out? ask the Obamas and their new $27 million beachfront home. And people just are like, oh, yeah, there's hypocrisy there. So I'm going to throw all the science out the window. And it boggles my mind how effective an argument like that is online.

And it really does work. Yeah, because it's simplistic. Everything that is simplistic, honestly, for us little, you know, humans that can only deal with one fact at a time, simplistic arguments are just so much easier. So much easier to peddle, so much easier to understand, and so much easier to adhere to.

So everything that is complexity, everything that is the reality that we have in life that most often there are two realities that seem like they could be mutually exclusive, but they're actually both real and standing side by side. And we have to be able to get beyond our simplistic thinking and understand that two realities can coexist, that we can hold them in equal standing at the same time to the Obama house.

Yes, they can live in that house right now. What is that house going to be facing five, ten, ten? 20, 50, 100 years from now, probably will get a little bit difficult over very short periods of time to get insurance on that house, right? So I do the same, by the way. I live in a house in front of the ocean. Yeah. I have insurance today.

Can I get insurance five, 10 years from now? I don't know. But that also rain brings up another issue, which is, I know that sea level. is rising. Does that mean that I cower in fear and dig myself into a dark hole of anxiety? Or does it mean that I am open and understanding of what is happening and live every single day up to my best and highest use as a human being. It so happens that my little soul needs water. I'm a fireperson and I need water. I need to look at the water. I need to wake up and see water. For years I have been living either in front of a river, in front of an ocean, something. I need

water. And that to me is almost more important than my daily food. I need to get out and walk the beach and listen to the ocean and put my feet in the ocean. And that gives me the energy to do the work that I need to do. Now, do I think that I can inherit that house to my great, great, great, great, great, grandchildren? Probably not. But in the meantime, how do I feed my soul, my spirit, my mind so that I can do the best work possible today? Well, and this is one of the things we were talking about before we started recording is your work with activists addressing what you call the pain in the system. And I would love to hear more about this pain in the system because when you said that, it really resonated with me. I recently worked with my collaborators on a video,

short film, 10-minute film, bringing back Recyclops from the office and using the character of Recyclops to underline the fact that plastic recycling is basically a crock of shit. And that this was created by the petroleum companies that only 9% of all plastic has ever been recycled. And it's a way for them to dodge fines and to put the onus on the consumer. Because if they can get like, hey, are you all recycling? You all should be recycling to save the planet. And meanwhile, they can have, they can just be burning fossil fuels and chemical spills and

putting microplastics into every possible environment while we're all busy sorting and rinsing our jugs and throwing them away. And I was sure we got a lot of views on the video, but I'd get so frustrated by, especially the news media, that just doesn't seem to give a fuck. And the reason they don't give a fact is because no one reads articles on climate change. I don't know, Rain, if you were aware that several months ago, there was a international negotiation to try to adopt a plastics treaty. What is interesting about that is that if you understand that the fossil fuel industry is already running out of the competitive advantage that they used to have with transport because there are more and more electric vehicles on the streets and being

produced today than even two or three years ago. They're running out of competitiveness with energy production, because especially now with the war on Iran, everyone has realized it's pretty dangerous to have to import fossil fuels and especially have to transport fossil fuels. So there are many more countries that are moving over toward renewable energy that is domestically produced that doesn't have to be transported through any straight of Hormuz. And so they know that they are running out of steam with respect to oil and gas for either electricity or for transport. So where do they go?

To the plastics industry, because that is their long tail. They have lost, according to the big head and long tail theory, you have a big head and then you have a long tail. The big head in the oil and gas industry is definitely transport and electricity. They're running out of that and they're now looking at the long tail. And they want to pull that long tail as much as possible via the plastics. industry. So what do they do? They absolutely put all of their attention into the plastics treaty. And to your point, they say, it's fine. In the plastics treaty, we can impose all kinds of standards

for the consumption and the recycling and all of that. But we're not going to accept any regulation on production. So they're putting all the weight on people, on consumers. And of course, that's really difficult. That's really difficult because each one of us as consumers are individual people. And what we need is basically consumer behavior to change individually, but also the system to change. You can't continue producing more and more and more plastic and expect that the consumers

are actually going to make up for increased production. It just doesn't work. Now, I'm not saying that we as humans don't need to change our behavior. It's an and also. We definitely need to change our behavior, our consumption, our demand. This is a demand and supply situation. And the more we demand, the more supply they're going to feel justified in producing. So it's both.

We also, as individuals, we also have to change our way of behaving. and the demand signals that we give into the market. Yes, it's true that the window is really, really, really, really closing. And it is also true that we are really, really, really progressing. That's the amazing thing. It sure doesn't feel like it. Well, because... I am going to say something I have never said out loud.

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And actually, you know, surprisingly, this void that has been left by the U.S., by U.S. industry, by U.S. government, et cetera, is quickly being filled in by many other governments, especially China. China is waking up to go like, wait a minute, you know, we're actually the number one producer in the world of solar technology, of wind technology, of electric vehicles, of electric chargers. We're the number one producers. Then why is China going around Africa building coal-fired power? And they're also going around Africa selling wind power and solar panels that are unbeatable in price, because China can afford to do both at the same time. People are always singing the praises of China in this field, but you can dig a little bit deeper. And they are creating coal plants, natural gas plants, oil burning plants at the same time. And not at the same rate that they used to five years ago. So the rate of that is coming down.

All right. And the rate of their investment and exports and production of all of the clean energies is going up exponentially. Yeah. And I think it's important note, too, that China is not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. Absolutely not. They're doing it because they want to be competitive. And they see a niche in the world market to be a leader in this field of where people are going to be looking for energy resources 50 or 100 years from now. Absolutely.

And they see, interestingly enough, that the global south is their biggest market. And they are, of course, much more advanced in their own transition at home. Yes, they still have coal much less than before. They have already peaked their emissions. They're coming down on emissions. And they're coming down on emissions almost a decade before they had promised. China always over promises. Under promises.

And over delivers. No, the other way around. Now they're doing the other way. They've always done that. Okay. China has always. Underpromised and overdelivered. Yeah.

Always done. That is their policy. So they're, you know, coming down on their emissions much faster than they had actually promised and will continue to do so. But the fun thing that they have discovered, especially after the United States, bowed out of this amazing market that is exploding, is that the global south is their, you know, huge market. And so they're going into countries everywhere in the global south that you think like, what? They're moving toward renewable energy. Yeah, they are. And Chinese technology is at the

basis of that. But it's very different to import technology infrastructure, install it, and then you can produce your own energy. That is conceptually different, rain, than having to import fossil fuel as a fuel constantly. Do you see the difference? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, also transforming our connection to planet Earth to see this beautiful 4 billion-year-old planet as this beautiful sacred space that we grew up in, that we loved, that we've watched trees grow, that we witness hummingbirds come out in the spring, that we want to share the vision of that planet with our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We want to be amazing ancestors.

there is also a spiritual shift on how we view how we're going to love and treat planet Earth. And are we going to continue to simply use it as some place to extract resources from and then chew those up and then dump the waste back onto our planet? Or are we going to choose a more holistic, loving, integrated, regenerative relationship? with planet Earth. So it's both of these things at the same time that I would love to get across from people. It's like it's super practical. It's super. It works within the confines of capitalism. And you can go back to the Bible and you can read these beautiful Psalms about how we love and treat planet Earth and God's great creation. What a sacred moment that we're in?

What a sacred moment that we're in that the threat to our common home is such that we are frankly being forced to go back to examine our relationship with our common home, our relationship with nature. Because I completely agree with you. Where this whole thing went awry is when we started to do. disassociate ourselves and to think of ourselves as being separate from nature. Yeah. Nature was something to be conquered. Nature is something to be conquered, to be owned, to be extracted from, and it is there for our benefit.

So all of that extractive, by the way, also linked to patriarchy, right? those extractive mentality and patriarchy are very much one in the same disease, I would say. And that began with the agricultural revolution. Aha, now we can own this property and we can farm here and we're going to extract from the land. And now we're realizing, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute. We can't continue to extract. We've reached and breached planetary boundaries all over the place. If we want to stay home, if we want to be alive on this home as a one of the eight million species, then do we not have to change a relationship and realize we're not apart from nature?

We are part of nature. And that is where we can regenerate ourselves. And that's where for me, rain is the link between regeneration. When I hear about people regenerating land and soil and forests and I think like, yes, great, and let's regenerate our own souls. Because our personal resilience is what gives us the energy, the strength, the fortitude to go out and help with the planetary resilience. We can't be weak in our personal capacity that we succumb to our.

all of these pressures, which I have done very often, because if we do, we're then incapable of going out and doing the work that we want to do. Our agency for the world, our agency for our planet depends on our personal agency. Those two things are intimately linked. And when I'm talking about pain in the system, I'm talking about mostly about colleagues of mine, millions of people who are working on, climate, biodiversity protection, and protection, all of these global environmental issues who are working so, so hard, 27 hours a day and then go home and cry because they feel like they don't have the agency. They're not making a difference.

And that sadness, that eco-anxiety is one that we have to help them to transform. So what is the other option? The option is not just to accept anything, you know, that is how. happening. The option is to go like, okay, what is the baseline? Where is my baseline? As a company, as a country, as a whatever, what is the baseline? And what can I reasonably do in constant improvement? For me, it's about constant improvement. And, you know, I move from my baseline to the next level and then to the next level and then to the next level. Little by little. Little by little or a lot by a lot, depending on what you can do and some companies can do a lot. But it's about the direction

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thought-provoking, a little trippy, a little funny. Go to Soulboom.com slash store. right now. The more I understand my own pain and face it and embrace it, the more I can understand and embrace and have compassion for your pain. Because otherwise, I can't relate to you. And most of our actions in the world are reactions that have been neurologically programmed out of past painful situations. And we're neurologically programmed to just react automatically to the those things. Patterns. Set patterns. Exactly. So what we invite people to do is let us mindfully,

mindfully pattern the future. How can I understand what my pain is? Many times it's actually personal pain before even professional pain because that's who we are as humans. We start with our personal pain and then on top of that we add all the professional pain of everything that is not happening on climate and biodiversity, da-da-da. But if you go down a little bit deeper, you see that there's a lot of personal pain. And most people end up there looking at their personal pain and understanding how that pain can actually be transformed or some people call it transmuted into, I now understand where this is coming from.

And we learn to pause a moment when you get an input from the outside world. we usually go input, reaction. No, how about we pause a moment? Respond instead of react. Respond mindfully. Choose the response. And that is incredibly helpful for me as a human being

in my personal relationships. But it also helps my professional activities. I think a lot of people that are activists in some way or are devoted to a cause that is greater than themselves. And it doesn't matter, you know, what side of the spectrum you're on, are oftentimes doing that to kind of fill a void within themselves. There's been some kind of traumatic event or some kind of hole, a God-shaped hole, shall we call it? And the addiction is not alcohol or drugs or or sex or shopping or food. The addiction is kind of like I'm going to just spin my wheels

furiously and try and make a difference in this world to fill up some way in which I feel less than, some way in which I feel wounded. And they're not necessarily in touch with that wound. That is the original seed that we have. And what sprouts out of that seed depends on how are we watering that seed and which seed are we watering. And so that relationship between who we are way, way, way deep down and how we be in the world, which then means how we think and how we act and how we impact the world, that chain of agency is then all of a sudden open to them. And they can see that they can change the way that they act and they can change the way in which they work with colleagues or team members or other people who they don't agree with.

And that changes, that shifts completely. How did this change and work for you? You mentioned being suicidal. You were literally actually suicidal, or are you speaking figuratively just in a dark place? No, I wish it were the second. Okay. You were suicidal. Yes.

And discovered the teachings of Ticknaut Han in the. the midst of your incredible work. You have been, and people who don't know, author, you know, just academic working in the halls of power, incredible accomplishments, but somehow in the midst of this, you were suicidal and found a spiritual path forward. This is something that we'd really like to hear, something I'd really like to hear. I was married for 25 years. And today I realized that I was married, I had married myself into a fairy tale of what I thought was the perfect marriage. Why?

Because I come from a broken family. My parents were not a great example of marital happiness. And I really wanted to change that in my life. And I thought by choosing this person and cultivating this relationship that I had actually completely transformed what a family was and what I could provide for my two daughters. So I was living in this little fairy tale. 25 years into my marriage, my former husband informed me that he had never been loyal to me, that he had been in, you know, what I call, I don't know, serial adultery for 25 years.

I was just completely broken. I thought, wait, what? sorry, I was in this fairy tale and you were in like a completely different world. And I was shocked. I was broken. And this was in 2013. I was holding the entire international negotiation process toward the Paris Agreement. At the same time this happened.

Yes. So you have leaders and heads of state calling you saying, we've got to meet. I'm not going to agree to this. and you've got to fly to Brussels and do this, and you find out that your whole marriage has been a lie. Yeah. And I was just, so what I did as my coping mechanism is I continued to work out of the optimistic,

inspirational side of me, putting on a big smile every morning, going to the office, working with my team, supporting my team. Yes, we can do this. Yes, it's difficult, but yes, we're going to do it. Working with the governments. All my day job continued to count on the happy, committed,

inspirational leader that I was as the executive secretary of the climate convention. And then Raina would go home and cry myself to sleep every night. I was just completely broken. I would cry myself to sleep every night. And that cognitive dissonance of being one person during the day because I had to, because my job demanded it, and another person at night, that cognitive dissonance over a year became so intolerable that I became suicidal because I just can't hold these two people within the same body anymore. So I became suicidal. and my suicidal thoughts were throwing myself in front of a train, which was particularly interesting because I had to ride the train to work every day.

I was living in Germany where the climate convention is, and I had to ride the train. And so my coping strategy was to hide behind a tree on the platform until the train was there and opened its doors, and then I would run into the train. Because if I stood on the platform, I was really scared. Wow. So after a long time of this, I said, I just can't do this anymore.

I just cannot do this anymore. And I wrote to a friend, this is before WhatsApp, I wrote an email to a friend in Costa Rica. And I said, I will be dead by tomorrow morning if I don't find something. This is not an email you want to get from any friend. And he said, whoa, whoa, what, what do you need? What do you need? And I said, well, I don't know. I just need something, something.

I just, you know, I can't even breathe anymore. I will commit suicide. And he goes, well, what do you need? And I go, I don't know, just something like Buddhism. And he writes back and he goes, what the hell do you know about Buddhism? I said, nothing. He goes, how do you spell it? I go, I don't know.

It has a double D or a double H or something. I don't know. Just look it up and send me something. I was desperate. So what would you do in your meditation practice where you're greeted by this overwhelming grief, sadness, betrayal, rage, all of those emotions coming up in you, feeling overwhelmed at the same time because you have to have meetings with 40 different world leaders in the next month. How does that transform? I mean, it's acceptance and allowance of the feelings,

but then what? What is that internal process? Well, you know, it's interesting that you ask that today because I will tell you that I fell into a really, really dark hole just about a month or two ago again, a very dark hole. And I began to identify the beginning of suicidal feelings. And I went like, whoa, wait a minute, I've been here before. I am not going to let this carry me away. And what I noticed over the past, six to eight weeks is that today, thanks to that practice, I have so many more tools that I have pulled myself out. So I can, today I can identify what is the seed that is inside of me that is taking over. And what I identified very quickly this time, but took me a long time

13 years ago is it's the seed of self-love. The absence of self-love is the cradle of the suicidal feelings, the depression, the anger, the resentment that I feel. It doesn't need to be for everybody else. This is just a personal experience. But I'm so grateful that I identify. that very quickly over the past few weeks. This is a real thing right now. I'm not talking about 13 years ago. I identified, wow, okay, hold on. Let me understand this. So I was given overwhelming

messages as a child and as a teenager. I was given overwhelming messages of hate, of cruelty, of everything that would prevent me from self-love. and I internalized those messages. I internalized that narrative. And I took it with me into adulthood. I was then able, because of the work that I did 13 years ago, I was able to not transpose all of that, let's just call it hate. Many different subchapters under that, but let's just call it hit.

I was able to not transpose that hate and that that, that men's. messaging onto my two daughters. So I was able to cut that chain and be what I think, and my daughters also think, is a great mom. And I have a great relationship with my daughters. And I've always been so grateful that I'm like, good job, Christina. You know, you are the last link in that chain. That chain probably goes way up from mother to grandmother to great-grandmother. Great job, Christiana. I was self-congratulatory. You broke that chain. You don't. You You didn't do that to your daughters. Your daughters are healthy, wonderful human beings.

You're so great. Hold on. Maybe not so great. Because what I did in breaking that chain out of love for my daughters, I didn't do out of love for me. Yeah. Because I still have that seed of self-doubt, self-hate. Sure.

Whatever, all of that. There's, you know, there are many things in there. And over the past six to eight weeks, and honestly, I'm still in that process, it is to understand, wow, that's where all this comes from. Yeah. That is where this comes from. And my now at the ripe age of almost 70, my task here and my opportunity is to not just cut the chain and not be the link onto future generations. but to heal that for self. Self-love is more difficult to identify and to amplify and to nourish and cultivate

than love for your children. That's what I've discovered. Yeah. I just discovered that. I went like, I have unconditioned love for my daughters and my grandson. Honestly, quite easy. Do I have unconditional love for myself? Okay.

This is your work. Christiana, this is your work. This is all of our work. This is all of our work. This is our life work. And I'm actually so grateful that this has happened to me again because honestly, just, I can't remember now two or three months ago when I fell into this horrible depression and this real, I thought, oh, please, what have I done?

What have I done? You know, what is my karma that I have to go into this again? And I'm now realizing this is my next step. Yeah. This is my next step. And if I did it with my daughters, I have to be able to do it with myself. Yeah. And otherwise, it's just half the job.

I thought with my daughters I had completed the job. Nope. No, Christiana, that's just half the job. Do you know the Kristen Neff self-compassion workbook? No, but you're going to tell me. It's pretty amazing. She's a therapist that studies self-compassion, which is a key component. of the Buddhist tradition.

Absolutely. And one of the first exercises is about how we are so able to have compassion for other people. We can have my good friend can be hurting and I can put my arms around him and say, I love you, I'm here for you. I'm so sorry for what you're going through. Even if they fucked up, like, oh, you fucked up. God, I fucked up too. I know what that's like, oh, I'm so sorry that you're in pain that you made that mistake, right?

But why can't we do that with ourselves? Yeah, why can't we say, oh, rain, you fucked up, you made a mistake. And I love you and I'm here for you. And I'm so sorry for what you're going through and you'll get through this. And we all make mistakes. We're not perfect. God didn't put us here on this planet as perfect little angels. We're mistake making humans and unrepeatable miracles of the universe, as my old therapist, Ken used to say.

And what's interesting about that is here you are in Germany leading this coalition, like helping to save the planet. You are literally charged with like, hey, Christiana, by the way, can you just save the planet too while you're hating yourself and your family is exploding? We just kind of need you to kind of like save the in the atmosphere. And all of these people like, we love you. We believe in you. Oh, my God. She's amazing. She speaks these languages.

She can lead us forward. She's meeting with Putin. Like, this is like, this is incredible. I just think climate is the mother of all injustices. Yeah. Globally. Can you speak a little bit more to that? Because I think a lot of people don't understand.

You know, you'll sit in your middle class cul-de-sac and you have a power grid and you've got, you know, a water system. And you're like, well, maybe some days are going to be hotter. and maybe I'm not going to be able to plant, you know, geraniums or petunias or something like that. But that's too bad. Maybe coffee gets a little bit more expensive, but how's it going to really affect me? But we're not thinking about, you know, the billion or so people living at or below the poverty line that are going to be decimated by extreme weather events and these kind of slow calamitous changes. Yeah.

And when I say that climate is the mother of all injustice, Is that exactly what I'm talking about? Because there is very clear traceability of who, when, and where are these greenhouse gas emissions? Where have they been emitted in the past? From a handful of countries. From a handful of countries. From a handful of people. Some of those people in the countries that are not great emitters.

From a handful of companies. So it's all very traceable. It's a handful of companies that are responsible for 70%. of the greenhouse gases. Thank you. Yeah. So there is a very tight concentration of historical responsibility of having caused climate change, because climate change was caused by this completely out of whack emissions.

As you said before, because we're digging out, you know, all of our biomass that took millions of years to decompose. Peat moss and oil and coal and all of the stuff that we're going to burn. Yeah. And deforesting at the same time. And deforestation. Thank you. And filling in wetlands and the natural carbon sinks are also disappearing.

Exactly. So why is this unjust? Let's start. It's a long list. This is unjust of with respect to global north and global south. Because it is the countries of the global north, those that took advantage and were blessed by the advantages of the industrial revolution. Those are the countries that hold the historical responsibility.

Countries in the South are now beginning to take on more responsibility because in their development they are emitting more, such as China and India and Brazil and other countries like that. But historically, it is definitely responsibility of the north over the south. Historically, there is a huge responsibility, absolutely uncontested responsibility of our generation and the one before versus future generations. Future generations have no responsibility. It is us who have caused this and our parents' generations. So from an intergenerational perspective, there's huge injustice. We caused it. We fucked up. We haven't cleaned it up, and it's future generations that are going to have to deal with it or live under it.

Gender. It is mostly men who have caused climate change, and it is overwhelmingly women, especially in developing countries, that are paying the high price for climate change because these women are responsible for food production, for da-da-da. And selling in the markets. Selling in the markets. Raising the children with extreme weather, drought, etc. So gender-wise, very, very unfair. And so you begin to understand, wow, so across so many different ways of cutting the problem, it is just completely, completely unjust.

It is unjust with respect to people who live in vulnerable areas, right? Low-lying islands. Most of those people didn't produce squat of greenhouse gases, and they still don't produce. And they are living under the most challenging circumstances. So it is just structurally, from every point of view, it is completely unjust. You had a very famous TED talk where you talked about being a stubborn optimist in the face of all of this worldly chaos going on. There's an incredible amount of despair and people trying to do work to make the world a better place are, as you call it, in systemic pain. Are you still a stubborn optimist?

What kind of hope can we hang our hat on moving forward? How do you see this going down with all of this darkness around us? I mean, a little bit we've already talked about this. So let me separate stubbornness from optimism just for a sec. For me, optimism is not a celebration of something that we have achieved. That's a celebration. And honestly, we do not celebrate enough. So A number one, we should celebrate even small successes more than we do.

Optimism for me is more of an input energy rather than an energy. output. It is the attitude, the mindset that I adopt in front of any challenge, whether it is my own self-growth or whether it is me climbing, you know, X mountain or, you know, running a marathon. If you're not optimistic about your engagement with a challenge, you probably will not be successful, or at least the chances of no success are very high. If you're optimistic, the chances of success are not guaranteed, but they're higher. So that's why I choose to be optimistic, especially about climate change, but about many other things in my life, fully knowing that there's no guarantee. There's no guarantee that we will ever solve climate change. In fact,

I know for sure that we will not solve climate change. But do we have a possibility of ameliorating the worst effects of climate change? Yes, absolutely we do. So that is what I choose. I choose to be optimistic as an energy that goes into and that faces any personal or professional challenge. That's what I mean by optimism. And the reason why I put stubborn in there is because all too often we just give up when, you know, the first barrier hits. Setback. Yeah.

A setback. And, you know, so-and-so didn't give me the funding for the project that I wanted or so-and-so, you know, told me that it's a bad idea or so-and-so, say-and-so, say. sitting in some dark house, which is not a white house, you know, has a different policy or, you know, whatever. And the fact is we will always have barriers. We will always have setbacks. So the question is, do I then just sit on my hands, twiddle my thumbs or hide under the sofa because there is a barrier? Or do I try to find, ah, if a door closes, can I find a window? Can I sneak under the door? Can I jump over the door? Where is the opportunity? So the stubborn

is for me and is, you know, deliberately a very disruptive word and perhaps a contentious word, but it's about let's always try to find a way forward, even if the door closes because the door will always close. But we have to be able to. So maybe more of like a determined optimist. Yes, determined. But you see, that wouldn't be. It doesn't have as much a ring to it. There you go. Yeah, absolutely. I'm optimistic because we do have. And ironically, I think, the war in Iran, cruel and horrible as it is, may turn out to be the greatest accelerator of Clinton analogies around the world. Ironically. Yeah. Because we don't even know like what's happening in India, Indonesia, the Philippines. They're so dependent on oil that comes from that

source. Yes. And through that straight. Yeah, exactly. And that those governments are going, holy shit. Our entire economy, fertilizer, growing, food, feeding our people is dependent on ships being able to go through this minefield of the Strait of Hormuz. So a lot of them, I imagine, are having a big kind of come to Jesus moment or come to Krishna or come to Muhammad moment. Jesus is a little bit complicated right now. Well, yeah, but reconfiguring their economies around that.

Absolutely. So they're all really realizing that energy dependence is not a good strategy. Yeah. 80% of the countries of the world import fossil fuels. Yeah, especially dependence on countries like the Gulf states and Iran and, you know, these. Very unpredictable. Yeah. Unpredictable.

So they're really understanding that. The term that I've just been reading recently is renewable freedom. So use renewables to get energy freedom. Yeah. because those are homegrown. So it's interesting, you know, that I think that war was started because of oil. And it could be one of the greatest accelerators of the liberation from oil. What an incredible conversation.

One of the things that we ask every guest is a definition of this wacky little word, soul. It means so many different things to so many different people. When you hear the word soul, what does that? it mean to you? You know, in my head, I always wonder, is it spelled S-O-U-L or is it spelled S-O-L-E? Because, yes, it is, on the one hand, soul, spirit, heart, you know, all of the, let's call it, the soft human infrastructure. And that is so important in defining who we are. But it is also, for me, S-O-L-E, which means the individual.

That's what it means to me. Who am I as a sole person? And what do I want to be my relationship with every other being, human, and non-being? So for me, it's an exploration in the relationship between myself and my non-self, myself and the self of everything else that is there. So that's why whenever I hear or see the word, I spell it two times or two ways at the same time. I would throw in an alternate spelling, which is S-O-L, Saul, Son, because... We have a sun inside of us. We have a light inside of us that we radiate, that mirrors the action of the sun,

that allows things around us to grow. That's another way. So now you've got three spellings. And what about the boom? Again, you're going to tell me about the boom part? Boom. Podcast over. How was that, Kartik?

Fucking slam dunk, right? Yeah, that was great. Right? The Soul Boom podcast. Subscribe now on YouTube. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get your stupid podcasts.