The Rich Roll Podcast - Roll On: A Planet Based Lifestyle

Episode Date: October 1, 2020

Welcome to another edition of Roll On—my bi-monthly deep dive into (semi) current events, topics of audience interest, and of course answers to your questions. Commanding co-host duties is my hype man Adam Skolnick, an activist and veteran journalist perhaps best known as David Goggins' Can't Hurt Me co-author. Adam has written about adventure sports, environmental issues and civil rights for outlets such as The New York Times, Outside, ESPN, BBC, and Men’s Health. He is the author of One Breath and is currently hard at work on a novel. Some of the many topics explored in today's conversation include: the documentary 'Kiss The Ground' -- underground econsystems; regenerative agriculture v. demand for meat; the documentary 'My Octopus Teacher' -- underwater ecosystems; New studies on the exponential growth of plastic waste; and thoughts on rugged individualism and commonwealth harm In addition, we answer the following listener questions: How do we grapple with the contradicting values of the American culture? How do you balance training needs and social responsibility in a pandemic? How do you help loved one's transition to a plant-based lifestyle? Thank you to Heidi from Northern California, Adam from Toronto, and Tristan from British Colombia for your questions. If you want your query discussed, drop it on our Facebook Page, or better yet leave a voicemail at [phone].   The visually inclined can watch our exchange on YouTube. And as always, the podcast streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Enjoy! Peace + Plants, Rich

The Rich Roll Podcast. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more.

Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful,

and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, so today, Adam and I get into a few documentaries, Kiss the Ground and My Octopus Teacher. We discuss the quickly metastasizing problem of plastic ending up in our oceans and waterways. And of course, we answer a bunch of listener questions. We answer a question on group training in the era of COVID, how to be an effective advocate for healthy lifestyle change,

and also a question on the problematic aspects of American exceptionalism, as well as several other topics. So with that, I give you me, Adam, and Roll On. Enjoy. All right, everybody, we're back. Welcome or welcome back to another hotly anticipated edition of Roll On. Roll On. Roll On. Give me your BBC One introduction again.

This is BBC Radio One. There we go. I like that. Can you do the whole podcast in that accent? I cannot. I'm good at just that. Otherwise, it gets really weird. Really quick, if you're joining us on YouTube today,

make sure you hit that subscribe button if you haven't already. I'm told that that's effective in building our subscriber base. Yes. Also, apparently there's a little bell, a little notification bell. And if you click that,

you will be alerted every time we post a new video. So- And you can trick YouTube into sending you good stuff. Yeah, exactly, right? We're all here to take control of the algorithm, are we not? Yes. And I'm joined today, of course, by my hype man, bestie, journeyman, journalist, adventurer, environmentalist, author, David Goggins, can't hurt me, co-author, Adam Skolnick. How are you doing, man? Good, man. How are you? Swim run enthusiast.

Swim run devotee. Uh-huh. Yeah. Back burner a little bit. On the shelf. With a new baby at home. Yeah, new baby, the new baby life is real, man. How's the sleep? Intermittent. Yeah. If I get three straight hours, that's amazing.

Too bad the health benefits of intermittent sleeping don't match the health benefits of intermittent fasting. Right, which I'm not doing either. More people would have babies. If, what do you mean? If intermittent sleeping? Well, you know how intermittent fasting is not like a big thing.

Everyone's like, you gotta intermittent fast. But if it was intermittent sleeping, that was the craze. This would be a way to have more intermittent sleep. I thought you meant it would be like, you'd wake up to have this sex as opposed to I kind of want to, but I'm not gonna go to the trouble.

I thought that's what you meant. Maybe that would happen too, I don't know. What we do here on the roll on is we invest a little bit of time in what we call the big story. We try to throw a teachable moment or two at you. We do a little show and tell. We take questions from listeners on our Facebook group.

If you would like your question considered for us to contemplate and talk about, you can leave us a voicemail at 424-235-4626. Quickly becoming a new addition to the format is our fitness check-in. Yeah. How's your fitness check-in? You went, you swam around the reef the other day. I did. I'll say two parts. One is I'm, that was great. I mean, to be able to get back to the reef and to see these, and it was 40 foot viz, at least it was really one of the more beautiful days of the year.

Rays, tons of fish that like new fish had hatched. So there was like baby fish everywhere, like explosions of baby fish. It was beautiful. But to be honest, like this zone two stuff, I feel like it's making me less fit. Like I feel I'm slower and more out of breath, but maybe it's the sleep deprivation.

Well, there's a couple of things with zone two. First is, and I've said this before, it's a long game, right? So patience is key. But the other aspect of that is consistency. It only works when you're applying it consistently day in and day out. So if you're doing intermittent zone two, you're probably not reaping the benefits and perhaps your fitness has slipped because that's really how you make the gains is when you're just like showing up day in, day out, day in, day out and being patient. Like an hour a day in zone two on a run. Yeah, it's going to be different for everybody. But if you're doing zone two twice a week and not doing anything else, yeah, your fitness is gonna slip.

Your fitness is gonna slip. Twice a week is good for me right now. Look, you've got a baby and everything has a season. You know what I mean? That's cool that you got out on the reef. What I think a lot of people don't realize is I think the best time of year in Los Angeles

is September and October. Oh, yeah. The weather's incredible. The water's warm. It's really great. It was like 68 degree water and clear. And then October, November is the best visibility on the California coast anyway.

I think October is the best month in almost every country. Like October and May are the, like when we can ever travel again, October and May, that's when you should travel. Well, it depends on where you're going. Yeah. Yeah. Right. But October in Los Angeles is very much an extended summer.

I mean, the days are shorter, but the climate is super nice. It's so nice. And temperate. You're right. I haven't swum around the reef in quite some time, but I did go on a bike ride with my buddy, Mark Hancock, the other day.

Mark is the guy that I did the Catalina swim run with. Oh, yeah. You met him, remember? Yes, great guy. He's Greg Renfrew's husband. Greg's a past podcast guest. She's the founder and CEO of Beauty Counter. And Mark is super fit, like an incredible athlete.

And I love doing some training with him. And when we were preparing for the Catalina race, I took him down to do that swim. And then we were preparing for the Catalina race, I took him down to do that swim. And then we were running all over the bluffs. Cause that's the one place in our kind of general region where you can approximate some kind of authentic swim run experience because it's hilly. Like most of the beaches around here,

everything's too flat, right? But that's one place where you can climb those trails and get some elevation and stuff like that. But he like was sort of freaking out when we went around the reef at, is that, what do you call that? It's on the way to Little Doom, but what is that point called?

It's Point Doom. That is the Point Doom. So you could call it Big Doom. Like a lot of people call it Big Doom. And then that cove, that beach there is Big Doom and Little Doom is on the other side of the smaller point. It's very exposed. There's a lot of seals. There's a lot of marine life.

Sea lions. Sea lions. And there's, the general consensus is this is a shark feeding ground. Yes. Right. And it's true. I've done that swim a ton of times.

I've done it with you. It is a little bit freaky and treacherous when you're out there because you definitely have a sense that you are exposed and in the wild. Yes. Although I've never seen anything that scared me. You're on high alert for sure. Yeah. And Mark, since that experience has told some friends that he swam around the big doom point. Yeah. And he told me that like all his friends are like, I can't believe you did that. Like you're like risking your life.

Like that's super sketchy to do that. And we do it. How many times have you done it? I mean, I moved out there to do it like five times a week. I did, you know, like I've got a buddy who's still out there like four or five times a week. And when he's not working, he's in production. Do you see sharks ever?

We've never seen, we've seen a blue shark. We've seen Mola Mola. There was a turtle sighting not too long ago. You know, I think that, so in terms of shark attacks, we see seals, sea lions that have been washed up with big bites out of them. I have a friend who surfs a big dune sometimes. And he said he literally was surfing

when he saw a great white eating a whale calf. Oh my God. And he just kept surfing. He's like, well, he's got food, so it's all good. Luckily. One time we finished our swim and we came out on the staircase and overlooking the bluffs.

It was a beautiful day. And we were just basking in, you know, in raw nature and thinking, wow, what a wonderful day. Isn't it beautiful out there? It was clear and the blue water's glittering with sunlight. And all of a sudden we see a white shark just breach and flop down right where we'd been. And we just looked at each other and said nothing and just moved along. But no, we've never seen a white shark. I think we will at some point. I mean, you know, the odds are eventually you might, but I'm not, you know,

I used to be scared about it. I used to, sometimes when I'm out there alone, you might, but I'm not, you know, I used to be scared about it. I used to sometimes when I'm out there alone, you might still feel it like the darkness approaching. It's in your brain. But water's quite clear out there, but on murky days, that's where it gets scary because you can't see, you know, and there's a sense of powerless. The murky days are when you get scared,

but, and there's powerless that you are in the food chain, but most of the attacks, I mean, I look at anytime there's an attack. First of all, we don't really have them too often. I mean, I can't remember last time it was publicized in our area. And the ones that were, were kayak fishermen, and nobody died.

There was a guy who got bit in Manhattan Beach by a juvenile white shark, not too long ago, an open water swimmer. And that was because he'd been going after the bait of the pier fishermen. So it tends to be, you know, the free divers that get hit or the open water swimmers that get hit, it can be bad, like around here anyway.

It can be bad luck, but often it's related to fishing and we're not doing that. And yeah, we're around their food. It's true. They are pinging off those buoys. Some of those buoys have like a radio kind of receptor and any white sharks that have been tagged do ping those buoys.

And so they do hear, if it comes within a quarter mile or a half mile of the buoy, they ping. So yes, it happens. But it's funny, sunset point in the bay is like within a mile of sunset point, there is a shark nursery, a white shark nursery that's known.

So that's actually swimming Temescal where I've been swimming lately for swim run training is I think is much more in terms of white sharks. We've seen one breach there too. Wow, there's a lot more people in the water. And there's more people in the water. For sure. I think, we're all scared

because of nobody wants to die that way, and because of jaws and all that. But in reality, I think it's, you have better chance of getting struck by lightning than getting hit by a shark. Well, we kill a hundred million sharks a year. A hundred million we kill a hundred million sharks a year. A hundred million we kill. And there are five people who die

by shark attacks every year. Yeah. Which is crazy. Do you know Michael Muller? Yeah. So I had him on the podcast. I have his book. I have his amazing shark book.

His big shark book. Yeah, it's incredible. He gave me a copy of that book. He did the podcast recently. That's gonna go up in a couple of weeks, but we spent the gravamen of that conversation talking about his adventures, photographing sharks and swimming out of the cage

with sharks. Yeah. That has really reframed how I think about these creatures. Yes. It's an amazing podcast. I can't wait to share it. I can't wait to listen. I think he posted on his Instagram not too long ago,

maybe it was like a year ago, about like if people knew how close sharks really came to them in the water, even just around here, like nobody would be swimming in the ocean. Some sort of like hint like that, but he's not afraid of them. I feel the same way. I feel like we might see one.

The thing to do if you're out in deeper water and you see one is to group up like in a knot and everyone face outward and to kind of make yourself bigger and not splash around or as hard as that might be. Well, the other thing he said was that you should swim towards them, right? All the stuff.

Which goes against every instinct that you're gonna have. But because they are the apex predator or the top of the food chain, they're not used to that. So in their brain, they're thinking, oh, this is a predator and they will turn off. Now, all this said, there are parts of the world where shark attacks are more common, North Carolina, Florida, Australia, even Hawaii.

I'm not minimizing the fear of sharks. Martha's Vineyard from Jaws. I'm like, exactly. I'm not like saying I'm this big, brave guy, but where we are, just the history of it, it's pretty far down what could go wrong. Famous last words. Yeah, but hey, if it happens.

No, I think that our planet, we do talk about it. If we see a shark out here, what to do? And we always say, calm, try to enjoy it, and then swim in as soon as you can. Uh-huh. That'll all go out the window the moment that happens, I would suspect. I would think so.

All right, we're still on the fitness check-in, are we not? I think so. You have to get into your vegan gains, bro. Yeah, I gotta check in on the swole update. So the strength training-in, are we not? I think so. You have to get into your vegan gains. Yeah, I got to check in on the swole update. So the strength training is ongoing. As I mentioned the last time we got together, I've been going to this gym where they set stuff up outside and I wear a mask and we social distance and there's only a couple of people there, but I've been really consistent with it. And it's been fun. Like my body has definitely changed. Like I'm back to, I was never like a gym rat

and I've never been that strong in the gym. I've never been somebody who threw big weights around or anything like that. Even when I was swimming and we were doing heavy weights three times a week, I was like, okay, you know, but I was never like, yeah, like way back then. But my goal was to be able to lift the kind of weight that I could lift in college when I was never like, yeah, like way back then. But my goal was to be able to lift the kind of weight

that I could lift in college when I was swim training at Stanford. And I thought it would take me at least until November to get there, but I'm already there, which is great. And I did it by just like literally like the first couple of weeks, I would only go for like 20 minutes and 30 minutes. And now I'm up to like an hour and a half.

And I'm feeling like different in my body. Like I have more control and I definitely have bulked up a little bit, not too much, but it's interesting and unfamiliar in contrast to when you're really focused on endurance and you're trying to get as lean as possible and it's all about power to weight, like letting go of that and trying something different has been cool.

And like I said, at the outset of the podcast, like everything has a season, right? So right now, like this is the season that I'm focused on and it's cool. You know, I'm somebody who was really fit in college and then I got fat and then I lost a bunch of weight and then I got fit. And then I got crazy skinny. Like in 2011, when I did Ultraman that year, I was like down to 158. Like I was like too lean. And now to be able to kind of bulk up a little bit and get strong

has been a cool experience for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is to say, as somebody who's been vegan for 13, coming on 14 years at this point, like I can still put on mass and I can still make gains in the gym without any animal products in my diet. And I think it speaks to this counter argument that you hear a lot from the peanut gallery when an athlete goes plant-based and then performs well, the kind of retort that you hear is, well, he or she made all their gains when they were eating animal products and they're just riding on the coattails of that. I've had so many permutations in my fitness journey and I've been vegan for so long to go from like really skinny where my arms were like toothpicks and I could swim all day, but not with much power to now having some heft on me

and be able to kind of pack that back on has been cool. So part of the, in terms of like the storytelling aspect of it, like, hey, at 54, I can get strong again after being vegan for this long and being at my age and that feels good. So more to be revealed. Not that like, I'm not holding myself out as some kind of, you know, like, you know,

this is a process, like I'm not like insanely fit or anything like that. I'm just trying something different and new. I think it's great. I mean, I think there's a lot to be said for weights, especially to water sports. I mean, I don't know about endurance sports as much, you would know more than me,

but I would imagine like getting, having strength can only help you, right? Right, but at some point it becomes diminishing returns, depending upon what you're trying to do. Like when I got crazy skinny, like I said, I could open water swim for hours and not get tired. And you don't build up any lactic acid because your muscles are so reduced.

Like now, if I was to go out and swim, I'm strong and I'm sure I'd be able to have more force in each pull, but I'm not gonna be able to do a 10 kilometer swim the way that I could when I was training in a different way. So there's just trade-offs with that. It's always trade-offs. I mean, I think, well, that's cool. It's a good journey.

That's one thing I've been missing since COVID is I used to go to this high intensity interval training gym in Santa Monica, Circuit Works. And really it was an integral part of what we were doing. My wife and I, it was like, I was doing that. I was swimming and I was running more and more off the treadmill, but like I'd had the foot problems in the treadmills

where I was able to get back on it in these intervals. And haven't had that. So I started doing more distance running, which got my running a lot better and got my swim runs better. And now I'm coming back to this. I'm like, wow, I really missed the strength because I have lost weight and strength.

And so I might start to do some of that in a park with one of those trainers and like socially distance way. He's like starting to meet people in a park. So I might be one of those guys in a park. Yeah, you see those guys. You see them at a park. I'll be a yoga mat park guy.

They pop the hatch on the back of their car and it's just filled with fitness equipment. Yeah, that's him. I'm the guy that comes in and please don't watch because I'm not an attractive runner. Well, there used to be, I don't know what's going on now, but close to where you live at the Santa Monica stairs. So at the top of the stairs,

there's a little grassy area and there would always be those guys there like running fitness classes. But they closed the stairs because of COVID. But that's because they used the stairs. Right, so the stairs are part of that workout. The stairs were the main part of the workout. And then when the stairs got closed,

people still came and started working out there. I don't understand the appeal. Like the medians aren't, it's not a park. It's like a little median strip. People would like sunbathe at the median. They would like have picnics. I'm like- So that's still going on?

Oh yeah. I haven't been by there in a while. Oh yeah, yeah. That's funny. Every day. All right, shifting gears. So I don't know about you, but the Social Dilemma documentary hasn't left me.

Like it kind of lives in my unconscious mind and it has changed, altered my relationship with social media. I've kind of really pulled back. And one of the things I've been thinking about, and this is all about me, I've been thinking about turning off the comments on YouTube in part because of that documentary,

but also because I found myself unable to stop checking them. Really? And I kind of scroll through them. And look, there's a lot of people there who say nice things or offer constructive criticism or feedback. And I'm all about that. That's totally fine. But it's also like a complete shit show.

Yeah. And I question like, all right, what is the purpose of these comment sections? If it's to create a place for healthy debate and conversation, that's one thing. But if it becomes a breeding ground for bot manipulation and all kinds of half-baked strange theories or just ad hominem attacks on either the guest or myself, what are we doing here? You know what I mean?

Well, isn't it- I thought, well, if I turn these off, does that then create the argument like, oh, he doesn't want to hear feedback or, you know, I don't know, but I thought as an experiment, I might try to turn them off and see what happens. Why not? I mean, is anything productive coming out of these? I learned long ago, don't read the comments. I mean, when you write stories for these publications that have the big, you know, and you have that, you have a huge subscriber base and listenership. And so you're going to get that same kind of blowback.

And often it becomes personal gripes or a take on your story that they didn't jive with. It's almost always negative because it's the same thing. It's not about social connection as you'd want it to be a place for a forum for constructive criticism and connection and discussion, but really it's about engagement and engagement can cut negative more often than positive because the way the internet works. It's like, you know, even when you text your friend, if you text them kind of something, it can be misperceived. So imagine that on a comment section when they're not your friends and you know, like, who knows? I'm sure there's- You don't even know who these people are. You don't know if they're real people.

Right. And really it's just about my relationship to it. Like I just need to not look at that because I don't wanna be influenced one way or the other. I wanna be able to speak freely and share my heart and not be thinking if I say that, somebody is gonna comment this. Like it lives in my awareness and I don't like that.

But I think what I'm gonna do is just stop reading them and try that. But it's like that addictive thing. Like I wanna gauge the temperature of how this particular conversation lands with people. So then I find myself checking it. And then I'm like, why did, especially like at night, like terrible idea.

Oh my God. Right before bed. And then I think, well, if I'm creating, like terrible idea. Oh my God. Right before bed. And then I think, well, if I'm creating, like by virtue of publishing a video and putting it on YouTube and allowing that comment section to be open, am I participating or contributing to some kind of manipulation that occurs there

by forces that don't have people's best interests at heart. Yeah, I mean, I think the idea of YouTube is the force has only one interest at heart and that's continued engagement, right? So it's not like it's some, that's the thing about social dilemma. It's not like even the people that we might say, how dare they create these things and let them run rampant

and have no responsibility over them and they're just cashing in. Really, they didn't mean to create this, this problem. They were looking at the positives, like you were saying, like social discussion, social connection. That's what their goal was, you know, and make money, of course. And, and it just turns out engagement trumps everything. And so that's the deal. I mean, I think, you know, you don't have that problem with your Twitter mentions where people are negative like that. I mean a little bit, but it's easy.

It's not as much. Yeah, because I think you've, in a way, just who you are and the stuff you cover and the guests you have on and the people that listen, it's a nurturing place. Like you created actually one of the more nurturing communities. There's plenty of people who have problems.

But the point is, is the YouTube videos that are posting are going to other people that aren't the listener base from the podcast. They're finding you on YouTube. And so I think, and they're getting served here. Right, it's a different thing because yeah, they're getting served up and they don't have any background or familiarity with who I am and what I do.

So it's coming at them completely sideways and out of the blue. And so they're like, who's this idiot? I mean, that's fine, whatever. All right. I guess what I'm gonna do is just commit to not looking at it. You commit to not reading the comments.

I mean, it's one thing in the Facebook group, which you might wanna check in on. Well, that's different because that's a, you know. It's curated. Yeah, it's curated. That community is coming there for a reason. So it's different. Yeah, I agree.

The main thing that I wanna talk about today, kind of the big story aspect of this podcast episode is to talk about this new documentary called Kiss the Ground. It's on Netflix. I'm sure many of you have seen it at this point. It just premiered the other day. It's directed by Joshua Tickle and Rebecca Harrell Tickle,

who are environmental filmmakers. It's narrated by Woody Harrelson. Woody. What's not to love about Woody? He's the best. Woody, Tom Brady, Giselle. It's great. Come on. Yeah, there's a lot of celebrity cameos in this.

Jason Mraz and we got Giselle and my boy, Tom Brady. Love Tom Brady. Wait, do you know him? No. He follows me on Instagram though. Yeah, he's all about lifestyle. No, I haven't met him. Healthy lifestyle.

Of course. He's gotta be in this chair one day. Gotta make that happen. Yeah, we gotta get him on there. If anybody knows Tom Brady, let's make that happen. In any event- You looked great on there, Tom. There's a lot of good about this movie.

And it essentially posits that we can not only stave off climate change, but we can actually significantly draw down carbon by way of soil regeneration. which is this pivot from this sort of CAFO slash industrialized farming system that we've created and pivoting to a regenerative way of relating to the land. Right, because they point out that we're having a huge soil erosion problem where everything- Two thirds of the world is desertified

and this is increasing. And it all started with human-based agriculture and they link it to all these failed civilizations and they link desertification to that. And the idea being that you can be regenerative instead of extractive and still actually help farmers. It actually will be a boon to farmers. So that's a big piece of it.

I mean, God bless that guy whose name I forget, who spends all his time traveling around, meeting with farmers. Ray, Ray Archuleta. Yeah, exactly. Like what an amazing human that he's, you know, not only evangelizing how important this is, but connecting with these farmers one-on-one

to actually show them that if they do this, they can be successful and more profitable. And that farmer, the example of the farmer, he's out in the Midwest and he had his entire, he was doing tilling. The idea is, you know, tilling- No-till is a big part of this. Right, so tilling is what creates the erosion problem.

And the idea is this guy was doing that, going by the book, but 95% of the farmers do because only 5% are regenerative. And so he was doing that. And he had his crops three years in a row wiped out by hailstorm, hailstorm, and then drought. And he was on the brink of bankruptcy. And he used that suffering, that crucible to completely reinvent how he was growing food. And he became kind of the poster child of regenerative agriculture in his area.

And his anecdotal stuff, I mean, what he's showing on the, what you can see plainly on camera and everything he's saying, it is cool. Yeah, it's super cool. And I think the movie does a great job of explaining this idea of drawdown and how carbon works, this concept of carbon sequestration and how important soil and soil regeneration is in that equation.

Right, they take the soil regeneration and they link it to climate change and carbon sequestration, which is real quick is like plants basically are carbon stores and they can store it in their roots, which then puts it into the soil. So it takes the CO2 out of the atmosphere, produces oxygen. And so if you cover your land,

if you have cover crops all the time, you never till, you can retain water better, retain the soil better, and sequester carbon. And so they position it as not just a good thing for soil and farmers and food, but a good thing for climate change. So much of the climate change discussion revolves around reducing our emissions, but that's only a small fraction of the solution because we have all this carbon in our atmosphere. And unless we figure out a way to draw it down, just reducing the amount that we're contributing to it actually isn't solving the problem at all. It's like reducing how much you're putting on your credit card when you're 100,000 in credit card debt. Right. Like I'm going to charge less, but I'm not paying any of it down, you know, is the idea. And I think the movie also did a really good job of kind of casing the history of how we got to this point through theosate and the impact that that has had

on the farming community and our food systems at large, which is a subject that I've gone into in depth many times with Zach Bush, probably most in depth in our first episode, which was episode 353. If you haven't listened to that, if you watch the movie and you haven't listened to that podcast, I think you'll find that quite illuminating and instructive. So lots to love about this, the importance of no-till, the role of regenerating soil in this climate equation, and some really good education on this existential threat

that we face, that we really are at a turning point and the stakes are very high. And what happens if we don't start living in the solution? The impact of this increasingly dire climate change on not just the environment at large, but on human beings like 1 billion refugees by 2050. Like it's already starting and this is very real. And transitioning farms to regenerative principles

is like this huge and great thing. And the idea that they're taking soil education mainstream and packaging it in a very entertaining documentary, I think is something to be celebrated. Totally. And there's even an amoeba sex scene where they play like sensual music and you see like little amoebas like getting together.

All right, what was the song they used for that? Like sexual healing. Yeah, it wasn't sexual healing. I know, but it was like. They couldn't get the rights. I also liked the case study of the Los Plateau in China and how they restored, you know, this once amazing part of China that had become desertified and now it's thriving, which is really cool.

And that was the example of like this huge empire that had fallen because they cultivated that place and then it's completely desertified. Right. I also like that it's sort of a RRP roundup, pun intended. Yes. pun intended. We got Rylan Englehart, who's a producer on the film, who's been on the podcast, and he and his family are the ones behind the Cafe Gratitude chain of restaurants. Which is also in the movie. Which is in the movie as well. Yeah. Paul Hawken, of course, who we're gonna get into in a little bit more in depth, is really kind of the anchor to this whole movie. His book, Drawdown, which I

have right here, which I wanna talk about a little bit more. And longtime listeners will remember him from the live event that we did in Los Angeles, talking about all these issues. And then David Bronner also, who's just like- I love David Bronner. He's the best. Yeah.

He's amazing. Talk about a good Twitter follow. Oh my God, I know. And a lot of the philosophy and the kind of backbone of what's discussed in this movie really does echo the work of Zach Bush, who's doing something similar with Farmer's Footprint, which is his nonprofit. And I should mention that Ryland,

in addition to being producer on the film, Kiss the Ground is his nonprofit that is behind the production of this movie as well. It also bears a fair resemblance to The Biggest Little Farm documentary. Did you see that? Yeah, I remember that. No, I didn't see it, but they have a stand at the farmer's market on Wednesday in Santa Monica every day, like the people behind that farm.

Right. Molly and John, who were on the podcast as well. And having visited that farm, podcast as well. And, you know, having visited that farm, I can attest to what it's like to put your hands and your feet in soil that has been regenerated to such an extent and the contrast that exists because their farm butts up against a similar conventionally farmed plot that is, you know, kind of what you see with that guy, you know, in the movie where he's like, this is my land and this is the next door neighbor's farm. And you could see the desertification in the soil. The ability of this soil to like hold the water and become more resilient in terms of drought. Like there's so much that's amazing about this process of regenerating the soil and to celebrate. So overall, like I love the movie for that.

And I should say, I do, you know, I have a couple issues with the movie that I wanna get into in a second. But before I do that, you know, when I did the podcast with the Chesters, the biggest little farm people, like I took some heat from the vegan community because this farm, like the farms portrayed

in Kiss the Ground, they use animals. Like, yeah, they're ranchers. There's animal husbandry going on. And some of those animals are sold to slaughter. And as I said in that podcast and in kind of response to the criticism that I got, like my intention in hosting them on the podcast was to celebrate this beautiful movie that they made,

but also to focus on soil, you know, and how important it is that we, you know, get into this idea of drawing down carbon by regenerating our soil, you know, as something that's set aside from the ethics of animal husbandry in general. And it was also an attempt at intellectual honesty. I think as somebody who's vegan plant-based,

there's an idea in the vegan community that you're living a harm-free life. And I think that that's, it's a fallacy and it's not intellectually honest. It's an aspiration to live more gently on the planet. But if you're eating an avocado, as John Chester said in our podcast, like he has to go through extraordinary lengths to keep the gophers from eating the avocados, right? And initially before he reached some kind of balance

with his ecosystem, he would have to kill gophers in order to protect the avocado trees. So there's harm that's the result of all of the choices that we make, it's just a calibration of your relationship to that harm. So in the case of the gophers and the avocado trees, that harm is more indirect. Like you're not involved in the slaughter of an animal to eat that food, but the idea that it exists outside of any harm whatsoever, I think is something that is not true.

And I think it's important to be like, it's not a credit to the plant-based or vegan movement to not be intellectually honest about these things. We are aspiring to live more gently. And that's something that I believe in and try to do, but I'm not under any illusion that the choices that I make don't have deleterious implications down the line. I'm just trying to be in a place where those are as reduced

as I possibly can make them. That's a great point. And also I think we need to resist this idea of being in silos with like minds. And that if we are only with this live gently crowd, that our life can be better and we're making an impact and all the rest, because look, our problems are so deep and varied

that we do need to build the bridges to other people doing work that can be beneficial and positive. And who are the people that we're slinging arrows at? Right. Let's try to celebrate the wins. And I think the move from conventional farming to regenerative farming is of course,

a step in the right direction. So I'm not in the business of trying to vilify any farmers who are trying to make that switch. I wanna be somebody who can champion that move. Now, like I would like to believe that if I was John Chester and running that farm, that I would not make the choice to sell my pigs to slaughter, but I'm also not him.

And I don't understand the economics of what's required to maintain the financial wellbeing of such an enterprise. So I don't want to stand in judgment of that. And these issues are complex and complicated. So I think we need to focus on the big problems that we're trying to solve. Well, also, if you're not tilling, then the pigs are actually performing a service on your land to, I think, I mean, that's part of it. Yeah. And this is kind of what we're going gonna get into in a little bit, which is really, you know,

the role of these ruminants. I mean, pigs aren't ruminants, but the role of the ruminants on the land and the extent to which that's necessary in this regenerative process. And I think my issue with the movie, and again, you know, everybody should see this movie and I love Rylan,

and I think what these guys are doing are fantastic and I I want to celebrate that, but I think there's a couple things that are overlooked. And this idea that regenerative ag is this panacea, that it's a simple solution thesis for solving our climate crisis is not exactly correct. This is much more nuanced and complex. And I don't know whether there's a disingenuity to this or a desire to avoid audience division, but basically the movie celebrates this guy, Alan Savory, in a kind of Pollyanna way. And for those that don't know, Alan Savory, he's this African rancher. He did this TED Talk that has millions and millions of views.

It's very compelling. And his basic thesis is that grazing reverses desertification and climate change. But what it fails to really tackle is that grazing is also the major driver of deforestation and topsoil loss globally. There really isn't any credible peer-reviewed science to support Savory's thesis. And it's also not clear on the role or the advantages that these

ruminants have on the regenerative process. And there's a school of thought that's supported by science that that idea that ruminants are absolutely necessary to this is a little overblown. It certainly improves the soil. A white rancher from Zimbabwe. Right, correct. Yeah. Certainly, these regenerative farms are improving the soil, but actually forests do it better than these farms. And none of this works unless global meat demand is significantly reduced,

drastically reduced, some say up to 75%. Anybody who's wanting to shift to holistic grazing and keep producing meat at today's volume at current demands is kind of indirectly advocating for the tearing down of forests in order to make room, because there just isn't enough room to do all of this. And this is a long way of saying that there's a bit of greenwashing in this documentary. And this is a subject that my buddy, Simon Hill, from the Plant Proof Podcast went into detail with this guy, Nicholas Carter,

who's an environmental scientist, guy's amazing. I think I might reach out to him to get him on the podcast because he's great. They did a whole podcast on this subject matter that I would encourage everybody to check out. Carter's, like I said, an environmental researcher. He's focused on the scientific links between agriculture and planetary health.

He's got a website that's got tons of resources on it called plantbaseddata.org that you should check out. There's also another guy called Dr. Jonathan Foley. He goes by at global eco guy on Twitter, who's a climate and environmental scientist. He's been speaking about this issue specifically recently. And the problem is that there's this idea that's kind of interlineated throughout the movie, kind of inferred, not quite stated expressly, that cows are the solution to the

problem. Cows are the solution to the climate crisis. Yeah. It's just not true. It could be a positive carbon. It could be carbon positive to have more cows grazing, not in feedlots, not in CAFOs, but grazing open land. And I think that that's a fallacy. Right now, 40 to 50% of all land is used for agriculture. Most of that is for animal agriculture, for livestock and for grazing. Only five to 10% of land is used for human crops.

And land is only- Human crops, meaning that a lot of that land is used for feed, right? Yeah, it's like land is used for feed, right? Yeah. It's like it's used for feed, right? Corn, corn and soy. And we're deforesting, we're clearing that land to grow that feed. So the forests are what we should really be focusing on the forest and the wetlands, which are much more effective at sequestration than grasslands. It also should be pointed out that this whole thesis is about ruminants, but chickens and pigs are not ruminants. So like, what are we doing about the chickens and the pigs?

Are they grazing wildly? Like, I'm not sure how that plays into this whole equation as well. Well, yeah. So I think that my flyover on this is like, one of the problems is that there, yes, there's this need to preserve topsoil. Farming regeneratively is a good thing, but it is sensationalistic, like, and it's high on kind of field on like emotion,

but very low on specifics as to the problems being solved by anybody in their movie. And the greater problem, which is there's X number of cows that are contributing X amount of methane. And here's the desertification. Because if the argument is all these areas around the world have been desertified, if we use this philosophy and instead of doing CAFOs,

ship cows in all these different parts of the world and create regenerative ranches, then we can replace that meat that is produced, which clearly is not possible. That would be one thing, but they don't really get into any of that at all. So the specifics are so low that you don't ever get a sense of the problem, let alone the solution. And so I think that's the problem. And I don't know if it's greenwashinghing because these aren't big companies trying to pretend they're environmental

or just sometimes you see this where you're trying to claim too much and the claim is greater than the proof you've got. And I think that's probably what's happening. You never get a sense of the problem in any real way. You just get fed kind of like high level, like emotional strings that are getting plucked, but they don't prove the case.

And that's good to the extent that it's getting people excited and active about solutions. So again, like I wanna be very careful. Like I'm not against this movie. I think regenerative, regenerating the soil is something we should all be excited about it, but let's be intellectually honest about it. Regenerative raised cows live longer than CAFO cows. So they're going to use more resources. They're going to consume more. They're going to require much more land. Like when you see the Markagrad Ranch in Half Moon Bay in the movie, it's massive, right?

But the cattle is nominal. Like I don't know how many heads of cattle they have on that ranch, but it didn't seem like that many for such a massive plot of land. So this is what we're talking about. Most of the grazed grass fed cattle, still those farmers still feed them feed for the last hundred days to like fatten them up. Not all of them, but some of them do. Also when they're

eating grass, they're eating a more fibrous diet. And that means they're producing more methane, four times as much methane. And you just, the truth is you can't feed the world this way with current meat demand. But meanwhile, we've cut down 45% of all the trees. Like we should be talking also about reforestation. So what you eat and how much you eat is actually more impactful than where it comes from. Because the other argument is like, well, if you're a vegan or vegetarian,

you're eating these monocropped foods, the soy and the grains and the things like that, or soy that's imported from somewhere else. But actually, there's studies that have run the math on this, and it basically indicates that imported soy is still less problematic than the grass-fed beef that's grown like down the road from you. Less problematic. Yeah, environmentally, environmentally. So there isn't enough land. If we wanna continue to eat animal products at the level that we do today, the livestock sector is gonna continue

to be very significant in terms of the greenhouse gas emissions that are emitted. Yeah, I think my big alarm bell went off in terms of just like glossing over something in the film was the claim of biodiversity. Because the idea is that monocrop farms are not diverse, but regenerative farms are very biodiverse. There's multiple crops, there's animals,

there's insects and bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi and everything happening in the soil, which is positive, which is true. But that's not – when I think of biodiversity, I don't think of human-engineered biodiversity. I think of actual biodiversity like in a kelp forest underwater or in a rainforest or a cloud forest or even in the desert because they kind of vilify deserts. And then they show Joshua Tree, which is actually an intact ecosystem. So, you know, like there right now, the UN is calling for 30 by 30.

It's a campaign called 30 by 30, which is 30% of all land and all oceans preserved, preserved completely from human activity by 2030. That's what it's going to take to help combat the effects of climate change. And they wanna go to 50 by 50 by 2050. So it's this idea that the less we interact with a specific area,

actually the better off Earth is. And so it's getting to your point in that, there's a very human centric element to this as if we can solve a problem that we've already caused. And I rebel against that because first of all, when we stop hunting for a certain thing or stop growing a certain thing or stop monkeying with a certain forest, it pops back.

That's just how nature is. That's the idea with no till. When you stop tilling, your farm becomes just by nature, your soil becomes more biodiverse in the soil. But that's not to me what biodiversity really means. That's not what the UN is calling biodiversity. That is more biodiverse than a monocrop desertifying farm, but it's not biodiversity writ large.

And so that's the kind of stuff that- Savory would probably say that he's giving the land a headstart by trying to create that biodiversity by planting the cover crops and all the different kinds of grasses. Like he's trying to create an environment where that can be more like what it would be like if we were leaving it alone,

yet also be a place that we could use to harvest food to feed humans. Right, but you could also accomplish it. There's people trying to rewild buffalo because like instead of using cows, you could try to rewild wolves and buffalo. And there are people doing that. You know, wolves have been rewilded

in Yellowstone and other places. And buffalo, there are people trying to get buffalo rewilded that can go from Canada to Mexico. Again, through this area that used to be full of bison. And the bison were wiped out as a part of a campaign to not only trap and get the fur, but also to destroy indigenous cultures and commit genocide. Post-Civil War and the Western expansion. Pre and post, I would guess. And so you could also rewild. You know, there's other solutions

that can still use some of the same thing that are talking about grazing big animals over large pieces of land, planting the right grasses. Because it also matters what you're planting. If you're managing a big farm, you're not necessarily planting native grasses. You're planting grasses that are gonna be benefit for your animal or for your crop. So not everything is created equal.

Not every plant is this, like an indigenous grass is what you need in a certain area. Not if you're trying to create real biodiversity, not just a grass that can be eaten by your cow. Now I'm picking, I'm being picky, but that's the problem I had, this claim of biodiversity, because it's not explained that well in the film. Yeah.

Back to Paul Hawken, who again is like an anchor in here. He's the guy who's been boots on the ground, studying this stuff for a very long time. His book, Drawdown, which everybody should get, I have a copy here, which basically chronicles the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming. Not reduce it, reverse it, right? And so it goes kind of subject by subject through all these different methodologies, modalities to draw down carbon. Number four out of all of them is a plant-rich diet. And the movie does do a section on this.

Yeah. And that's where you see Ryland and you see David Bronner, like these guys are vegans. Yeah. But they don't really make the point, which I wish they would have made, which is that if we really wanna be in the solution here, we have to move towards

not just a plant rich diet, like ultimately a plant-based diet or a mostly plant-based diet. We have to reduce our reliance on meat. That's a huge part of this. Plant rich diet and draw down, if we can make that pivot, that would be responsible for 66 gigatons of carbon, as pointed out in the book. Regenerative ag is number 11 at 23 gigatons. So this is more important by a factor of three in terms of what's going to move the needle the most. Number five is tropical forests, which goes back to reforestation at 61 gigatons. So I think soil regeneration is key

and crucial and beautiful and amazing. And if every conventional farmer made this pivot, we would live in a better world than we do today. But it is a piece in a larger puzzle if we really want to solve this problem. Another good thing about the movie is they did spend time on reducing food waste, which is huge. Which is amazing. And that's something that eludes kind of us. We don't talk very much about it. Paul and I talked about it in our live event

and it's number three in Drawdown. Food waste is like such a huge problem. And to the extent that we can create systems to alleviate this, because I think we're just relying on us, like not throwing away our scraps, like it's never gonna work. But that case study in San Francisco

where there's businesses that incentivize people to make sure that that food ends up in a compostable bin. And that bin goes to a certain place where they can process this and create compost, I think is amazing. It's not businesses, it's the government. Right. The government makes, my sister lives in the Bay Area

and they have it in all, it's kind of grown from San Francisco across the Bay Area and you get fined for putting- Right, so Newsom makes that point. Yeah, like you only pay when you screw up, right? Yeah, you pay. Is that how it works? Yes, so you pay a fine if your compostable food waste

ends up in the trash or in the recycle bin. Right. And you get money back, you pay less if you don't have that much in your black trash bin. And the trash bins are tiny. They're really slender things. Right. They're like you back in 2013.

You go to Europe and the trash bins are all tiny. You know that? And you're like, how do you live this way? And it just makes you realize how in America, we're such a refuse oriented culture. We are just bloated, greedy assholes. You're in like an apartment in some city in Europe and the trash can is literally like two feet tall

by one foot or something like that. You're like, I throw more away in one day. I know, it's terrible. I know, hey, listen, I'm the guy putting diapers in a bin right now. Right, you're not recycling your diapers. Regenerative. Recycling.

Regenerative diapers. Actually, when I leave here, I'm going to be doing a massive diaper clean and hang out. I've got this clothesline, it stretches across San Vicente. This is just my child's diapers. Awesome. There's a bunch of studies on all this stuff we've been talking about.

I'm gonna link them up in the show notes. Certainly don't take my word for it. And I'm not a climate scientist, I'm not a scientist, but I think it's important that we all kind of grapple with these issues and take responsibility for our own education. In the meantime, again, I'll just say, listen to that podcast with Nicholas Carter

and Simon Hill, Plant Proof Podcast. Check out Nicholas Carter, check out Dr. Jonathan Foley and others. And again, I'll link up those studies. And the tropical forest kind of, and aquaculture is in drawdown, I believe, expansion of aquaculture. Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. Because there's this idea that you can, if you stop taking wild fish stocks and you stop, because there's, you can do aquaculture, just like you can do farming in a regenerative way, you can do aquaculture in a way that's,

I know not to be, I am 95% plant-based as an eater, but I'm just saying that one of the solutions to, instead of using large CAFOs and people feeding on red meat and chicken, which is really bad for the climate, is this idea that if people ate more fish and you grew the fish in a way that's sustainable, then you can draw down carbon.

That's why it's in drawdown. But the idea for tropical forests, 61 gigatons, part of that, again, goes back to real biodiversity and what biodiversity does when you leave a place alone. Right. Yeah. Cool. All right.

We ready to move on? Ready to move on. What are we talking about? You wanna get into this? You have a hot take on another Netflix doc. I do. My Octopus Teacher. My Octopus Teacher.

You gotta see My Octopus Teacher, friends. It's great. I love My Octopus Teacher. This is turning into a documentary film review podcast. Yes, the last two times. I know. Next time we're not gonna watch, I'm not watching any more documentaries for at least a month.

But this is good because we need, you know, these water cooler moments. Like these are movies that we can all see that are accessible to all of us. Yes. And it gives us, and I love these movies and I like talking about them. So if there's another good documentary

that comes out next week, that's coming up on the podcast. I'm gonna get a text. Wait, My Octopus Teacher is basically what my friends and I have been doing for eight years at Point Doom. So you must have felt like, this movie was made for me.

Well, I feel, first of all, my friends are still going out to the reef almost every day and they're sending me images. And it is a little bit depressing to not be able to go out. But obviously I have bigger things on my plate. I'm holding a creature in my arms versus- And I should say, sorry to interrupt,

but just to interject, when we talk about swimming around the reef, the first time I went and did this with you, I'm used to going out with a group of people and hammering. Like, you know, we're swimming, this is a workout. And I go out with you and you've got a scuba mask on. And I'm like, what is happening here? This is not the normal open water swim crew

that I'm used to. And then you're just diving to the bottom. And this is like, we're taking our time. And I was like, first I'm our time. And I was like- We're looking in caves. At first I'm like, I gotta get my swim in. Yeah, you have been back. And then finally, after like 30 minutes of this, I was like, okay, I get it.

Like, this is just something totally different. Like, forget about your workout. We're here to like smell the roses. Yeah, yeah, it's very smell the roses. And I didn't realize that actually at the time because until I started going to this hit gym and started doing swim run, I didn't realize how much I wasn't getting in shape

with my swims. I used to think that that was getting me in shape like five times a week, like getting fit. And it absolutely- It's zone zero is what it is. It is literally zone zero. You cannot get in shape swimming the way we do or the way Craig Foster does, who is this,

he's a wildlife photographer that is from South Africa. And the idea is that he's having a midlife crisis. Basically, he's having an emotional breakdown and he decides to go back to his family's beach house on the cliffs of the most amazing coastline in all of Africa. And he swims every day and he meets an octopus who teaches him the ropes. But it's very similar to what we do is we go down and we swim in the reef and we see the animals. And it is.

And so in that way, it touched me. And he is a gifted photographer, like his own footage that is kind of woven in. It's beautiful. It's unbelievable. So that's the kind of woven in. It's beautiful. It's unbelievable. So that's the kind of basis, but let's hear the hot take. Right, it's a beautiful movie and it does such an elegant job of creating this connectivity with the natural world

and the mysteries of the natural world and how much there is for us to learn. Like it's humbling. It's like this beautiful mainline injection of humility. Like we think we know what's going on and in truth we don't. And there's so much beauty and majesty and mystery right in front of us if we would just slow down and take the time to pay attention, you know? And that's a big part of what I got out of it. And I love it, you know? And I think, well, a couple of things. First. And I love it, you know, and I think,

well, a couple of things. First of all- Where's your hot take? I'm getting to it, I'm working up to it. I wanna make sure everybody understands that I love this movie first. What a badass Craig Foster is to go in this water without a wetsuit, first of all,

because that, what is it, like nine Celsius? Nine degrees Celsius, so it's 50. So what is that? 50? I mean, that's crazy cold. 50, 51. And he's out there every day for like a really long time. Yeah, so it's 50. So what is that? 50? I mean, that's crazy cold. 50, 51. And he's out there every day

for like a really long time. Yeah, I mean, this is the Southern Ocean. And nobody, the movie wouldn't be any worse for wear if he's like putting on a wetsuit every day. No, but he won't even hear about it. He's a purist. He's a purist. And he won't take a scuba tank.

No, but he has his free diving fins and weights. Right, right, but he's gotta come up for air and he's diving down pretty deep. So. I think it's like 25 feet. You know, I think that it doesn't look that much. Is that part of just his trying to be as connected to that world as possible

by not like kind of putting on any artifice? You know, I don't know. He doesn't really describe it. But if you think about it, like he was emotionally like damaged. He was feeling emotionally fragile. And so he wanted to feel the ocean. I think he explained it as

when he was tracking animals in Botswana, right? And he was with, or was it Burundi or Botswana? I thought it was- I can't remember, but he was with a tribe in Africa. And they were barefoot and they were part of the, and they were the best trackers he'd ever seen. And he had been doing this long film with them and he was so taken by them

and he wanted to be a part of the environment. So I think he was inspired by those guys, those hunters and trackers. Right. And that's why he went with no wetsuit. My hot take is that this movie is really a movie about mental illness. It is.

This is a guy who clearly was suffering, right? And we don't really know exactly the cause of his, the root of his suffering. And we don't know exactly what he was going through because it's only very tangentially alluded to. They don't spend a lot of time getting into like the backstory other than to show him making that movie, you know, tracking in Africa.

But clearly there's something that he's struggling with and he loses himself. And this movie is about his journey back to wholeness and the impact of this ecosystem. And in particular, this one octopus has on healing him really. But I couldn't help but think like, well, what is, is it depression?

Maybe it's manic depression because there is a mania with his obsession once this clicks in with him. Yeah. Where everything else in his world gets pushed away and it's just all about this octopus. And he's coming home and he's putting pictures up on the wall. Yeah.

And it's almost like, you know, the trope of the, you know, the cop who of the, you know, the cop who's hunting the serial killer. And you're like, what is going on with this guy? And he's got a family. He's got a son. He's got a wife at the beginning, although we don't see the wife at the end. So I'm not sure what happens there. You don't think she stuck through it? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if she did. I mean, you know, wouldn't, if she was still around, wouldn't she have been part of that conclusion on some level? I don't know. Maybe she didn't want to be a part of it. I don't

know. But I'm thinking about the son when he's putting up the pictures on the wall, thinking what's going on with the son right now when his dad is like- Is dad having an affair with an octopus? You know? I mean, there's an absentee aspect to it, I'm sure. And that couldn't have been easy for his family. So while he's being healed, I would suspect that, you know,

the domestic life was very challenged by this, but it was probably even more challenged by him prior to that when he was suffering even more deeply. He probably got to the point where his wife's like, sure, go out, how many, five hours today? Good, you should go for six. But you know what, I see, I didn't take,

I mean, I agree it was a midlife crisis movie, but- It's more than a midlife crisis. A severe crisis movie. And he's a very interesting character, clearly very talented with a camera. I'm unbelievable. And obsessive. But also like a true artist. Yeah, an artist.

Like a true artist. The pictures he's putting up on the wall are incredible. And the collections he makes, it's unbelievable. And basically he's trying to mimic the tracking that he witnessed in Africa and ply that underwater. Which is incredible. How do you track an octopus underwater? What are the traces that you're looking for?

And like the forensics of that alone are insane, right? It is like a weird CSI South Africa kind of narrative. You know what I mean? Yeah. The other way to look at it from the octopus point of view is this octopus was being stalked its entire life. Do you think it was- You shake hands with one human being and you're stalked for the rest of your life.

Do you think it was the same octopus? Are you a My Octopus Teacher truther? I'm just asking the question. You just ask the tough questions. I think it was. I trust Craig Foster's obsessivism. I hope so. But at the end of the movie,

at the end of the movie, he's not swimming alone. He's got a group of people. None of them are allowed to wear wetsuits. Right, yeah. I'm really glad his son came back into the picture at the end and you see this bond between them and how this process has ultimately brought them together

and they can now have this shared experience. I hedge a little bit on the family. It's impossible to know through these movies or any books, like what a person's family life is like. They might just keep it out just to keep it private. But that's kind of part of the story though. Yeah. You,

yeah, you would want it to be. And it is part of this story, his relationship with his son. And it's not really delve is they don't really go into it too much. It's like almost the, a little bit, the opposite problem with the last movie you talked about where they take on a bunch of issues to the point where they can't get in depth in some ways,

whereas this is so deep into one place. Yeah, it's very- It doesn't kind of encompass everything. The focus is very narrow. Yeah. Yeah, it's like you're not cutting away to the son sharing his perspective on what his dad's doing. I love that. I know. I kind of wanted that, but I understand why they did it the way that they did it. And look, we didn't even talk about what it's really about, which is he immerses himself in this environment. And by being very patient and showing up day after day, he develops this connection with this octopus.

He's observing it relentlessly. And he ends up learning all about this incredible creature. Which is one of the most intelligent creatures on earth. Yeah, in a way that, you know, even other scientists, you know, he's like making discoveries, like first time discoveries about behavior that people didn't even realize. And I think what you get from that is that

it goes back to humility. Like we think we're at the top of the food chain, we're the most intelligent animal. Well, intelligence comes in many different forms. We have a certain kind of intelligence that allows us to be very good at certain things. realize like this is an unbelievably smart animal that is so adept in its environment and so good at survival. It's amazing. Like when it collects all those shells and rolls up into a ball to like disappear or changes colors- Which you might've seen in like Blue Planet before. Right. But when you actually see it played out and there's like a whole methodology to this whole thing and then how it gets comfortable around him

and swims up on him and attaches to his chest and all the way to, I keep saying he, it's a she. Yeah, the octopus is a she. And then the mating and then the giving birth and passing on and all of that. It's beautiful. And one thing that Craig Foster makes a really good point is that people always ask him,

why do you go to the same place every day? And they've asked us that same thing. Why are you always going to the same place? Wouldn't it be cooler? Wouldn't you learn more if you went other dive sites? And he said, to learn about the wild, you gotta go back to the same place every day. And I find that to be so profound.

It's like- It's very Zen Buddhist. It's very Zen Buddhist. It's very localist. There's like an argument of, it's very Zen Buddhist in that wherever you go, there you are. You don't have to travel the world to know the world, right? Right. It would be like going into your backyard and just staring at the same anthill every day. You could all do that, you know? Wait, you have a cool anthill in your backyard? Probably. I wouldn't even know.

I don't have a backyard, bro. But you might have like a spider web or something like that. I have a planter box. I can say, the point being like, there's nature everywhere. If you slow down and pay attention. But there's a Wim Hof element of being in cold water

and how that shocks you. And then just like, can we give some, just take a moment to pause at the breathtaking beauty and incredible majesty of Africa. Like Africa, you don't even, you think of Africa, like you could think of it in a million different ways. Kinetic cities, incredible music, like colorful and beautiful cultures and traditions,

the big five animals, all the incredible animals in East Africa, all the way to the mountain gorillas. And then you see this coastline that's like Big Sur times 10. Right, it's so majestic. Africa is unbelievable. Yeah, I mean, those waves crashing.

You're like, I can't believe you're going swimming out there. Yeah. He's a badass. It's crazy. He didn't get just washed up on the rocks. Yeah. He knows what he's doing. So anyway, props to Africa. I want to get out there. I want to go, I want to go, I want to join the group for a swim. Yeah. I want to get out there. I've never been to Africa. All right. My Octopus Teacher. It's on Netflix, right? Yeah. All right. It's on Netflix. Check it out. Let's take a break and we'll be back with a little show and tell and some listener questions. And we're back. All right, show and tell.

So this week, a new article came out in the journal Science News Study. It was coauthored by my friend, Marcus Erickson at Five Gyres. And Marcus led a study, the first global estimate of amount of plastic that is actually swirling in the oceans. And at the time it was in 2015 when that came out,

it was 5 trillion tons of plastic. Is that when they were saying the patch was the size of Texas? That's right. And the patch is the size of Texas, but it doesn't mean there's like big sheets of plastic swirling around. Most of it looks exactly like this. This was collected by Marcus in the North Pacific gyre. So explain that for people that are just listening. So we talked about microplastics before. The idea is the plastic ends up in the waterways and it breaks down to plankton-sized particles

and it gets nibbled on by fish and that's how it toxifies the food chain, toxifies nature. But these little plastic particles get into, plastic gets into the water and there's five oceanic, main oceanic gyres, current systems. What's a gyre? A gyre is like the swirling current. Like a macro current.

It's a macro, a giant current, influential current. And the North Pacific has one, the South Pacific has one, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, and there's one in the Indian Ocean. Those are the main gyres. I'm not sure about the Southern Ocean, but those are the main oceanic gyres that five gyres. Right. I'm not sure about the Southern Ocean, but those are the main oceanic gyres

that Five Gyres looks at. And so the plastic get into rivers, get into the ocean, and it just travels. A lot of it travels. Sometimes it'll beach itself. Sometimes it'll just continue to travel into this gyre. It'll just start swirling and kind of the toilet bowl situation.

And it breaks down. And so these are microplastics, these little jars. This was in the North Pacific gyre. Let me see that. Yeah. This is- So it just, it looks like large grain sand. Exactly.

Sort of that's multicolored. Or pebbles. Yeah. And some of it's really tiny. Here's the North Atlantic gyre. This was collected on the expedition I was on with five gyres and Jack Johnson. It looks different based on where,

which part of the ocean you get it from, which ocean. Well, it looks the same, but it's just like, there's less of it. And that's the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. But those were pulled out of water that was as blue as you could imagine. It didn't look like anything was in it. It looks like perfectly clear.

And yet you're pulling that because you can't see it. It just looks like little flakes. These are nurdles. It came from a Hong Kong plastic plant. Nurdles are the base element of all plastic. It's just a base element that becomes any plastic item, a bottle. So this is what all plastics start with,

like these little tiny little kernels or nodules that it just looks like sea salt, like large grain sea salt. And like grains of rice. And that's what my, when we talked about the Boreo guys on the podcast, the guys that turn the fishing nets back into nurdles, that's what they do.

Anyway, so I brought that in because there's this new study that estimates there's, in 2016, they looked at it, 19 to 23 million metric tons, or 11% of the plastic waste generated globally, entered the aquatic system. So one out of every 10 items that you're throwing away that's plastic ends up in the water.

And that, if we do nothing, I talked to Marcus on the drive here, I spent a little time chatting with him, and he said that if we do nothing at all, that number by 2030 will go to be 80 million metric tons that we throw away. So literally four times what we're currently seeing. Four times. He says that he's authoring another study now, an updated global estimate. And he says it's 10 times at least what they thought in 2015, which was 5 trillion metric tons. It's going to be at least 10 X that in this new study. And basically he said that

this new study that came out in science this week, isn't really about the problem so much as how do you solve the problem? And so there's no magic bullet. There's no magic bullet situation. There's a few things that we can do and we need to work on all of them simultaneously. One is moratorium on plastic production facilities. The industry is putting billions of dollars into building new plastic plants. You've seen reporting on it, I'm sure. So that one is a moratorium. The other is bans on single-use plastics, things like bottle bans, bag bans, all packaging bans. The EU has all single-use plastic bans that's in place. Kenya has really strong rules on that

is one thing that Marcus told me. And with the pandemic, even myself, who I was really good about no plastic, I've been going to the farmer's market and using pre-packaged plastic bags worth of tomatoes or whatever the fruit might be or food, because I don't want a bunch of people, you know, feeling up my produce and COVIDing on it. But, and he, and I asked him about that and he said, you know, look, we gotta, we gotta take care of essential workers. We have

to take care of ourselves. You have to take care of essential workers. We have to take care of ourselves. We have to take care of human beings. So for now, if we're taking a small step back and using plastic, he's not poo-pooing any of that. But long-term, we need to start making this change. And the number one change that needs to be made is something called extended producer responsibility, which means if you are Procter & Gamble and you are packaging something in plastic, you then have to be responsible for disposal of that thing. As it is now, they just dump a bunch of plastic into the waste system. Cities, our tax money goes towards trying to get rid of it.

Right, they're absolved of any responsibility for what happens to it after that. So the proposal is that it's an end-to-end responsibility. It's a closed loop. If you produce it, then you have to be on the hook for how it gets recycled or where it ends up. So then the money goes into, you have to start to R&D,

figure out ways to create packaging that can be reused. And us as consumers shouldn't have to expect like a shiny thing necessarily. The problem is that even if it's designed to be reused, most people just throw the shit out anyway. Right, so then that goes in where the money goes. You have to make inroads to these local plants. There has to be a plan in place for you

to ship that back to your facility, wherever that might be, your distribution. The machinations are so insane. I mean, the title of this science article is predicted growth in plastic waste exceeds efforts to mitigate plastic pollution. So it's sort of like the doping situation. Like the dopers are always a step ahead

of the detectors, right? So the plastic production is just ahead of our ability to mitigate it with these machinations. Like we have to go through all of these crazy processes to try to get a handle on this. Can't we just invent something that disintegrates after a certain amount of time? Or you know what I mean?

Like there has to be some kind of technological solution that would render plastic obsolete. Like I feel like that's the only way we're gonna get a handle on this because otherwise it's gonna continue to spiral out of control. Because the companies will never wanna invest money into fixing their own problem.

Right, and there is, I don't know, did you watch in Kiss the Ground at the very end, like when the credits are rolling, did you watch that part? Yeah, I watched some of it. So Rosario Dawson's like on Venice, on the boardwalk at Venice, and she's like interviewing random people

and asking them like, what are you doing about climate change? And like people either stare at her blankly or they're like, well, I use paper straws. You know, it's like, that's for a lot of people, like that's the one thing they're doing, but- Which is nice. It's not necessarily a greenwashing thing,

but it's this idea that when you do this little thing that's good, but not really having a major impact, it makes you feel like you're part of the solution and it prevents you from actually tackling the real issues here, right? And this issue is so out of control and so beyond the average consumer's ability to get a grasp on it. Like, yeah, okay, I'm not going to use plastic bags, but we've been sharing about how hard this is. But it's not the average consumer's ability to get a grasp on it. Like, yeah, okay, I'm not gonna use plastic bags, but we've been sharing about how hard this is. But it's not the average consumer's responsibility. So the point is that it's gotta be put on,

you gotta go upstream. You've got to stop this stuff from coming into the system. That's the only solution. So the only solution is stop manufacturing it, putting a moratorium, creating laws that eliminate it from coming into the system because you can't put it on the person on the boardwalk. You can't put it on us.

It's gotta be put into the companies themselves. How is it that so much of this stuff ends up in the water? I mean, that just goes through the way- What is the chain of custody here that- I mean, it spills out every time. Have you ever watched a trash truck drive down the street? That just goes through the way- What is the chain of custody here that- I mean, it spills out every time. Have you ever watched a trash truck drive down the street? Yeah, but all right, so we're talking about 20 and then moving towards 80.

Yeah, some of it has been the way it's collected. It spills onto the street. It's littered. Some of it has been we ship our plastic waste overseas and who knows what happens and it gets sorted. I don't exactly know if they looked at exactly how that happens. They've just quantified how much does. And what is the impact on marine life?

Like when this stuff is in, obviously we know, like the fish eat it and it toxifies the fish. But do you have a grip on kind of- It feels like, well, I mean, Marcus was activated on this issue when he took students as a grad student. He took students to the, I think it was Midway Islands to study albatrosses. And he found scores of dead albatross on the beach. And he cut them open.

They bisected them right then because Marcus is a mad scientist and he just had his kids do that. And their bellies were filled with this plastic. And so you can't overstate its impact on wildlife. And we've all seen the images of these once beautiful, pristine, tropical beaches, like whether it's in Bali or, you know, and they're just littered with, you know, so much

plastic refuse. It's just horrific. Yeah. And, and whales that have turned up with bellies full of plastic or especially the lunge feeding whales, right. They're getting it. That's happened as well. So there is a huge impact on wildlife and, and, and in terms of the comp like stuff that will disintegrate, you know, often, often we see here in LA, we might get a smoothie or a coffee and something with a plastic that says compostable. Those are only compostable in a very specific technology that heats it up to a various temperature.

And most recycling centers that will receive that container will not have that there. Yeah, I've heard that from other sources as that. And so it's kind of bullshit. So it makes you feel like you're doing the right thing, but so little of that actually gets properly composted. That's right. So, you know, not to say don't recycle, but the point is we need to stop the manufacturing. You need to go upstream and we need to stop it. And that's the way we gotta do it. Yeah. Yeah, it kind of, there is an analogy to the regenerative soil thing and this idea of, you know,

how we're addressing climate change. Like, are we just reducing like how bad we're making it? Or are we actually reversing it? You know what I mean? So there's like, okay, we gotta slow down this plastic consumption thing, but that's not actually reversing it or removing it from our waterways.

You can't really remove it. You know, it's already out there. There's that guy, Boyan Slatka, right? Oh, it's not? What's going on? What's the latest with that? Well, they raised a hundred million dollars and they've deployed it.

And within a handful of weeks, it broke down and then they moved it to the Hawaiian islands and they tried to refix it and redeploy it. Now it's being transitioned into like a river cleanups thing because, you know, you can't. It's very hard to put a piece of machinery out in the middle of the ocean and not have it break down. I mean, saltwater corrodes and erodes. I mean, that's what it does. So I don't think it's going very well for my, for what I've heard.

That's a bummer. I like that kid. Yeah. Magic bullet solutions just don't work really's going very well for my- That's a bummer. I like that kid. Yeah, magic bullet solutions just don't work really when it comes to this stuff. And I think it is possible. We never would have thought plastic bags would become illegal and they did. So I think there is a way you gotta put it,

it's not consumer-based, it's producer-based. You have to ask people to be responsible for their shit, just like you do your kid. You know, like if your kid takes something somewhere, don't just leave it on the ground. In a broader context, I feel like as a culture, we've become less and less capable of unifying around solutions that are community oriented, you know?

And part of this is government responsibility, but we're so fractured right now. Like, can we really come together to solve our biggest problems? Like COVID was this amazing opportunity for us to stop. We're being put in timeout. Let's really take a hard look at some of these systems and the impact that they're having on our planet. And I feel like we're missing put in timeout. Let's really take a hard look at some of these systems and the impact that they're having on our planet.

And I feel like we're missing that moment that it's passing us by without really taking advantage of what it's being offered. Like in the 70s, when they realized that aerosols were harming the ozone, we were able to like eradicate that and take care of that, right? And now we're having these- You passed a law saying you can't make it.

Right, stop making it, right? Same deal. Like, why can't we just, no more plastic bags. Right. No more of the, like- We can, we just don't. We don't do it. Because the-

And then we have, and then it becomes politicized and we argue about it. It's true. And that's deeply concerning to me. I think that's the bigger issue is like, can we come together to solve our problems? me. I think that's the bigger issue is like, can we come together to solve our problems? Well, look, here's the deal. Especially in the podcast community, where like in the kind of area that you specialize in, and even Joe Rogan, you have these people that

come on, the David Goggins of the world who say, who are paragons of, I took care of my shit. I looked at myself in the mirror. I owned my shit. I changed my life and I became more. And I've become empowered. And we love that. Those are great stories. And we consume those. And they become our kind of mentors by proxy that we follow either on Instagram or just we read the books or we watch the films or whatever it is.

And they become who we want ourselves to be. We want a piece of that for ourselves. And we don't demand that of people in the public space of corporations. We don't demand it. Somehow those people are exempt. They're not supposed to look after their own shit. Or you look at a guy like Trump, if I lose, I didn't lose. Like the absolute opposite of someone who owns their shit and it has integrity. So all we're asking is, look, company, no one says don't make money. I like making money. Make your money, but look at the earth, look at the greater culture, look at the, you know, have some responsibility to everybody else. That's all we're asking.

So can we ask that of a corporation? It's certainly out of the box. I'm not saying it's easy, but I think we should be able to ask it. And we could ask it once back in the day, we were asking those questions. Back to the broader issues. I mean, part of the reason why we love

those stories of transformation is that it speaks to our innate attraction to this idea of like rugged individualism. Like I can do it, right? It's up to me. And there's something very American about that, like manifest destiny. And it's about self-interest and the self-made man. manifest destiny and it's about self-interest and the self-made man. And when we see somebody who accomplishes something, we love to kind of celebrate that as an example of what is a very American ideal. I think it's very US-centric in that regard, at least the fervor that we have for that kind of story is very particular. And that's at odds with the Commonwealth, right?

Like when we have these existential crises, they require us to come together and we don't celebrate the community rising up to solve the problem in the way that we celebrate the individual who's able to like overcome obstacles himself. the individual who's able to like overcome obstacles himself? Like, can we apply that enthusiasm that we have for those kinds of individual stories to a common story where we come together as a people

to solve a problem and overcome an obstacle? I like that. New way of storytelling. All right, let's do some listener questions. There's a question that kind of gets into some of this, I think. Ready? Hi, Rich. Hi, Adam.

My name's Tristan. I'm calling you from the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Coast Salish people in Vancouver, B.C. I'm a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada, and I've lived in both, so I've been comparing and contrasting the two countries for some time now. I've been wondering if there's some cultural root difference that could explain why our value systems are manifested in policy and behavior so differently, almost to the point that

Americans appear to champion freedom but reject responsibility when Canadians generally accept freedom and responsibility as two sides to the same coin. I'm thinking, for example, how as Americans we want the right to bear arms but not the universal background checks or common sense restrictions. We want the freedom to run a business, but not so much the responsibility of dealing with the waste of byproducts of production. We want to move fast and break things in the tech world, but we don't want to take responsibility

for how that affects society. We want the right to vote and are outraged at the thought of foreigners interfering in our elections, but we interfere with and overthrow other governments. We want to use the fast lane to pass slower drivers, but we won't move over for others. I'm wondering if you think there's something cultural that is uniquely American to account for this. Love the show. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Tristan. I feel like this could be a whole college course. Like you could spend a semester on this question. Why Canadians are better than Americans? No, not that. But certainly, you know, to answer his question, is there a cultural difference? 100% there is. Like America, you know, America. Like that's what this is about, right? Just what you were talking about. Yeah, it's what we were talking about. What is it about America and the American sensibility and, you know, our shared history that leads to, talking about, like our culture is premised on this idea of liberty and baked into that is this sense of self-sufficiency and manifest destiny, this idea that your future rests on your shoulders, you know, literally don't tread on me,

you know, like don't tread on me, get out of my business, get out of the way. We came here from England to escape a certain, you know, certain aspects of religious repression and taxation. And we wanted to be left alone to do what we wanted to do. And I think the genetic material of that has been passed on generation after generation after generation. It's so woven into the fabric of our culture.

And part of that is what makes us great. It's what makes us different. It's what makes this experiment so compelling and dynamic. But there's also a part of it that's incredibly dysfunctional. And we're seeing that dysfunction metastasize in certain ways right now. It's different right now. Like we were talking about, crises used to unite us, right? Like what happened when we were heading into World War II and all the women had to go into the factories and they converted the automotive factories into making airplanes and making munitions and all these sorts of things. Or the New Deal with FDR where we just marshaled incredible reserves to create these programs to lift people up from the bottom. All these things, there's so many examples over the history of our country where we were able to unite in times of strain to solve our shared problems for the common good.

And now the crises that used to unite us seem to divide us. They become partisan, they become acrimonious, they become feeding grounds for political talking points and arrows slung. And social media plays a big part on this by really tapping into people's fears, by activating their subconscious in a way that weaponizes ideas and pits us against ourselves. And I think, you know, another aspect of it is this idea that, a very American idea of zero-sum game, right? Like baked into don't tread on me is like, this is mine, yours is there, you can't have what's mine. And if you're winning, then I'm losing. And I think we have a leader at the moment who exemplifies this idea, like nobody else can win except him.

There are winners and there are losers. And the idea that we can all win together is not part of that mentality, the zero-sum sensibility. And that my responsibility only extends to myself, my needs, and that of my family alone. Meanwhile, as we modernize and we specialize, we become more and more alienated from each other. We've lost our connection with our neighbors. We've experienced this denigration, this demise of community as we move towards this cul-de-sac culture where we lock ourselves in our cars and our homes. There's an isolationism that is at play here that I think you can layer on top of this false sense of American sort of superiority and entitlement. Like, yeah, like how dare anybody mess with our elections

while we're doing who knows what in the third world, but that's fine because we're America, right? This idea of American exceptionalism. And that's starting to fracture. It's like, there is this unmistakable sense that we're like Rome in the final days before the collapse. These systems don't last forever. And our system is flawed, highly flawed. highly flawed. So. And the way that they were put, the systems were put in place also was kind of obviously flawed and problematic and evil in certain ways

and who is treated with fairly by the law and who still is. Right. But, you know, in terms of just going to the core of the question of Canada versus America, what makes it different? And I don't, I've never lived in Canada, so it would be hard for me to know, but a few things kind of stand out. Two of them are kind of policy and one is more media. But I, you know, first of all, we just had this big Supreme Court decision when Obama was still in office that made corporations

individuals. So I don't think many countries in the world treat businesses as individuals. They don't give the same rights to corporations that they're supposed to give to individuals. It's crazy. Corporations are not individuals. They're businesses and they should be held to a different standard. Canada, to my knowledge, does not treat businesses that way.

It's the same thing with Gavin Newsom and what happened with homeowners and trying to get them to throw their trash out. Canada gets corporations to throw their trash out a little bit better than we do. I mean, I think Manifest Destiny existed there too. I think First Nations, as they're called in Canada, indigenous people were treated very poorly and were eradicated there too. So that happened. and were eradicated there too.

So that happened. But in terms of legally what's been going on, corporations have more to answer for than they do in this country. They also have a parliamentary government, which means that if you win a government, if you win, the prime minister is elected through their parties, the parties are elected and the leader of the party becomes the prime minister, as far as I know.

And if you win in a parliamentary process, if you win by a narrow margin, you are then tasked with creating a coalition government with people who are maybe your political opponents and getting enough people in place to actually support your government. That means that coalition building is baked into the process. That's the same process England has, the same process Australia has. We don't have that process. I'm not arguing that that's a better process, but there is a coalition building, a communal, you know, having to see each other eye to eye and meet in the middle. It's baked into the way they create their laws in Canada. We don't have that here. It's winner take all here, holding hostage by the power of the Senate or whatever it might be.

It's supposed to be, you're supposed to come correct and meet and compromise, but that's not been happening lately. No, I mean, first of all, we're not a democracy. We're a democratic Republic. There's a difference. I don't think we talk enough about that, like the republic aspect of how our government is structured. But what we've seen in the last several decades

is this explosion in executive powers, like this expansion of the executive branch that I think exceeds what the forefathers would have ever predicted. There's supposed to be a very finely tuned balance between the three branches of government. And now it's just all about the executive and it's all about the president. So I think the president has too much power.

Meanwhile, with the rights that have been vested in corporations matched by the way that we structure campaign finance, we've created a situation in which lobbyists actually hold the most power. They're making all the money and they're the ones who are dictating policy at the highest level by getting politicians to do the bidding of these corporations, which are treated as individuals. And thus, we create a system in which the rights of these corporations are paramount to the rights of citizens. And that's led us to this place where we are unable to care for our commons because our priority is making sure that business is growing and that business is thriving. And campaign finance laws are different in Canada.

And you can see that. And I think there was a Michael Moore documentary. Was it Bowling for Columbine? Where he like crosses the border and like starts opening Canadians doors and their doors are always unlocked. And he looked at the media and there wasn't like, they didn't have cops

and no one was afraid of getting robbed and they didn't have guns. And their news media actually wasn't all about fear first. It wasn't headline grabby. It was kind of boring. And so all of those things, I think – was that Bowling for Cops? I forget what that was. I don't remember.

It sounds right. Yeah. All right. We answered that question. We did. Let's move on. Thank you. Thanks, Tristan.

Thank you, Tristan. All right. Ready? Go. Hey, Tristan. Thank you, Tristan. All right. Ready? Go. Hey, Rick and Adam. My name is Heidi, and I am in the Bay Area. My question or sort of conversation that I'd like to open up is about training and social responsibility. So I train with a large triathlon team in the Bay Area.

I've known the people now for nine years plus. And over the years, they've helped me go from 5Ks to multiple Ironman finishes. But more importantly, they're my second family. In the beginning of the pandemic, we did socially distanced workouts. And then we just quickly transitioned when everything was, you know, hell in a handbasket. So we would actually just post virtually. And in May, a lot of my team decided to train in person together, just keeping six feet apart.

But that's really tricky, right, with the wind and everything. And I made the decision not to attend gatherings. I noticed through Strava photos people weren't wearing masks or hugging. My question is, I've known these people for many years, as I mentioned, deep relationships, and I struggle now with reconciling that and meeting that social network with disregard for other people. And it just doesn't seem respectful to me to be out there with no mask now and putting my athletic pursuit through the one, for me, it feels more selfish. So I know this seems like a judgmental question.

All right, thank you, Heidi, for your question. This one's tricky. And I think it's applicable more broadly than her specific question. Yeah, she's talking about her triathlon training group, but this could be- Yeah, but we all deal with this. Yeah, it's talking about her triathlon training group, but this could be- Yeah, but we all deal with this. Yeah, it's like, how are we interacting

with our friends and our peer group? Or is it cool to go out running? That kind of thing. Right, right. And whether it's meeting at a restaurant or going out running or cycling or whatever it is, I think there's a relatable aspect of this question that extends beyond her specific circumstances.

But I think it's tough. And ultimately, all I can say is that you got to do what's right for you. And you got to stay out of the business of what other people are doing. And I think you said in your question, this seems judgmental, but you're not being judgmental. But I would suggest that perhaps your judgment runs a little bit deeper than you might be aware, because I feel like you are judging everybody else or at least this particular group. And I don't think that that judgment is serving you or them. Ultimately, you only have control over your actions and your reactions, not what anyone else is doing. And I understand that that peer group,

that social connection with that community is important to you. But if your personal safety and social distancing exceeds that need or that desire for your social outlet, then that has to dictate how you behave, right? It's tough when you're talking about training outdoors, you know, and I think what makes this complicated is there's a lot of confusion and uncertainty about the disease, how it's transmitted. Is it safe to be outside? It's like, oh, we all wear masks,

but then you're, you know, I'm walking down main street in Santa Monica and there's restaurants and everyone's sitting outside and they're not wearing masks and I'm walking down Main Street in Santa Monica and there's restaurants and everyone's sitting outside and they're not wearing masks and I'm walking right by them while I'm wearing masks. So it's like, it's okay to not wear a mask when you're sitting down at a table, but not when you're walking, like it's weird. And so it's like, how do you make sense of any of this? You don't.

You can't and you don't, right? So that's why it all goes back to doing what feels right for you. And also not putting other people in harm's way as a result of your behavior, I think is important as well. So yeah, so first do no harm and then do what's right for you. And I would say, look, I deal with this as well.

Like I like to train alone. So being with a peer group isn't as important as it feels like it is to you with respect to the training. But I do think when you're outside and the wind's blowing and you're somewhat distant from another individual, the chances that you're gonna contract the disease are pretty limited. And that doesn't mean that you shouldn't, you know,

maintain a safe distance and, you know, kind of watch your P's and Q's. But that scenario is very different than going to a bar where the music's loud and people are yelling and they're standing right next to each other and the air is not well circulated. Like those are night and day situations. Yes.

Although I have been out riding my bike by myself, but I'll ride up behind somebody and they're like, I don't know, 10 meters ahead of me. But when you're riding a bike, like you generate a lot of phlegm. Right. You're doing the snot rockets and it's like, am I just, even though I'm 10 meters behind,

if you're going 15, 20 miles an hour, is that just going right into my nose and my face? I don't think snot rockets are cool right now. I would err on the no snot rocket. When you're riding your bike, like your nose starts to run, you gotta do something with that. You know what I mean? And a lot of that ends up in the air.

Like is that not the aerosolized droplets that we're hearing about? So then I'm like, is this like worse than me being, you know? It's a good question. And I don't know the answer to that. You know what I mean? So all I can tell you is that, you know, you should continue to train,

but maybe not do it with this group. If you wanna, you know, find a way to do it with one other person and that way you can kind of- Yeah, bubble up. Regulate the social distancing a little bit more practically, that might be good. But I think the broader thing that I wanna express is not getting caught up in what other people are doing or not doing

because that's gonna make you crazy. But it is hard to do that when there is this- You see pictures of people hugging, and it's like, well, yeah, on Facebook or whatever. You know, you work at a job and you can't see your colleagues anymore. And then you see they're going to a bar and you're at home trying to do the right thing or whatever.

It's rough. Some people are more committed to bubbling than others, believe me, with a newborn. And then before that pregnant wife, we were super careful. And I think all you can do is have a mask on you. So if you're biking or running, we even put them in our wetsuits and put them on for walking back after swimming,

just have it with you. And if you're coming up close on someone, put it up. And if not run free without the mask, I think that's fine. That's what I do. Yeah. Um, but, uh, kudos Heidi for 5k to an, going from a 5k to multiple Ironman finishes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty amazing. Absolutely. So, all right, cool. Thanks. All right. We'll do one more. All right, cool. Let's go to Toronto. Two from Canada today. You're huge in Canada, bro. Hello, Adam and Rich. My name is Adam.

I'm 29 years old and live in Toronto, Canada. I am a big fan of the podcast. Rich, you have been a huge inspiration in my life. I've been eating whole food plant-based for three years now. Recently, I started to train and I aspire to one day complete an Ironman competition as you did. I have also cured my chronic migraine since I have changed my diet to whole food plant based. My question is, how do you inspire extended family members and friends to transition to a plant based diet? This concerns me, especially when I see the health issues they are experiencing.

In addition to the impact that food choices have on the environment and animals. Thank you. Thank you, Adam. This question isn't that different from Heidi's question because an aspect of it has to do with trying to convince people to do what you're doing. You know what I mean? Trying to control behavior kind of? Yeah, trying to control the behavior of others or being in judgment of others' behavior.

And I get it. Like, I understand the predicament that you're in. You've made this lifestyle change. You had this amazing turnaround. You've cleared your migraines and that's to be celebrated and amazing. And I think what happens when you have an experience like that,

you then wanna be a cheerleader. You wanna chant. You're like, why isn't everybody doing this? Like, I need to tell people about this, right? You wanna wave the flag. Yeah, and then you quickly run up into some brick walls because people don't wanna hear it. They don't want your flag.

They don't want your flag, man. Go on Reddit. Yeah. Go tell people on 4chan about it, right? And family members can be particularly tricky, right? And I can just tell you- Just generally. Yeah, I can just tell you from personal experience, like, I've been plant-based for 14 years at this point. We've got all these cookbooks, I've got this podcast. Like my whole thing is about advocating this. Absolutely. Do you think this has impacted my family in terms of their choices around food?

No. If you think so, you would be sorely mistaken about that. You've influenced a lot of people, but not the ones that love you. Right. And that's because sometimes the ones that love you are the hardest one because they know you too well, right? So if you wanna be an advocate, that's great,

but your audience might have to extend beyond the people that you care most about. And that's just the way it goes. My whole way of carrying myself with this is to just be a lighthouse. I'm not in the business of taking other people's inventory. And this is something I learned in recovery, like clean your own house, man, make sure your house is clean. Don't worry about what's going on in everybody else's house,

clean your own house. Don't take inventory of other people's behavior, which is another way of saying, don't be in judgment of other people. Three years ago, you weren't eating plant-based. If somebody had come up to you then and browbeat you about your dietary choices, how would you receive that? Yeah. You're probably not so good, right? No.

So be a lighthouse. And by that, I mean, stand in your power, be an example of this lifestyle, live well, be awesome. And in doing that, you become a center of gravity that puts out this tractor beam that attracts people who are vibrating on your wavelength to you. And those are the people who are going to be receptive to what you have to say, because they're going to petition you. They're going to come up to you and say, hey, you look great. Like you look different. What are you doing? Will you tell me about that? That's your audience. Those are the people who want a little piece of

what you have to offer, but trying to roll up on people who haven't expressed that kind of sentiment or aren't demonstrating to you that they're open about it is generally a losing proposition. And it becomes off-putting. Like basically you're creating the opposite of what you're trying to do. So. Also, I mean, I think that it's so interesting. You said it, I was thinking that is that what makes you

so good at talking about these issues is that the recovery background has like put you in the perfect position to be not ever caring what somebody else is eating. Like that's just not on your program. It's not my job to be in judgment of what other people are doing. And it's not my job to-

That's a recovery thing, right? Yeah, and that's something like I learned early and often in the rooms. And I try to carry that into the way that I speak about these other things. What's funny is when you get sober, I talk about this with my buddies, like you get sober and then you're like, you think everybody quit drinking and doing drugs just like you did, you know? And then like every, occasionally you

find yourself in a situation like at a bar or a party and you're like, people are partying and you're like, people still do this? You know, like what is going on? You know, I thought we all quit. Isn't that the deal we made? This is over. Right, so that's not dissimilar from when you've had a lifestyle change that has had such a positive impact on you. And then you're like,

I can't believe people are still doing X, Y, or Z. Like, didn't we all get over that? Especially people you know, because just the same way that they, that family knows who you were before you changed, you know, all their dirty little secrets and know how their eating effects may affect their, their physical issues. It is a, it is fraught. But yeah, just the fact that you have that background to fall on, God, that helps in so many ways. It's so interesting how the, the crosses that we bear and

the things that we overcome, you can just call back on so many different fronts in your life. I just find that so cool. I mean, one thing you can do, and I would say this to Adam, it's not like you just completely opt out of caring about your friends and your family. You can say like, hey, this is what's going on with me, but just low ball it. Just be like, you know, I started eating plants and like my migraines went away. It's about your attachment to the impact of that. Like it's about your relationship to the results. So you can be like, hey, if you're ever interested, like I'm happy to talk to you about it.

Or here's a book that I read. I thought it was pretty cool. Just as long as you're not walking around with an expectation that that book is going to get read or whatever you're saying is going to land with that person. So you can make yourself available if and when that person shows, you know, some inclination or interest in what you have to say, just don't be attached to it because it's, you're, you're the one who's gonna suffer. Yeah.

If you bring a vegan lasagna to the family potluck and nobody eats it, don't throw it on the ground. No. Maybe just make a better vegan lasagna. Exactly. Like that's the thing Julie does. She'll just make something that's so good. And people are like, whoa. It's not even like-

Is this vegan? You don't even have to say it's vegan or it's not vegan. You just make it awesome and they eat it. That's the whole philosophy back to Ryland at the beginning. Like they have a restaurant, in addition to Cafe Gratitude, they have a restaurant called Gracias Madre in West Hollywood.

Oh, that's them too? Yeah. Oh man, I love that restaurant. It's incredible. It's a beautiful restaurant. Phenomenal. The food is insane. Yes. Not once, nowhere on the menu, not on the signage,

nowhere does it say this is a plant-based restaurant or a vegan restaurant. And I would suspect a lot of people go and eat there and have no idea. I would think, yeah. Yeah, it's just great. And you go there because the food's awesome. And that's the way that you went.

And the vibe is awesome. It's a great place. Yeah. Yeah. Do we answer the question? I'm hungry now. All right. We answered it. Let's end it. Let's wrap it. Let the vibe is awesome. It's a great place. Yeah. Yeah. Do we answer the question? I'm hungry now. All right.

We answered it. Let's end it. Let's wrap it. Let's land this plane. Somebody sent me a comment and they said, you should make a t-shirt that says, let's land this plane. So I always say that on the podcast.

Do you ever feel like we landed it, we're on fumes and it's just like coming in bumpy? All the time. All the time. Not this time though. Last week we stuck the time. All the time. Not this time though. Last week we stuck the landing. We stuck it. That was like a gymnast on her floor routine. Yeah.

It was perfectly executed. Exactly. That might've been our peak podcast. That's it? It's all downhill from here? I don't know. You tell me. Wait, is this my last day here?

No, you're fired. America. Are we done? I think we're fired. America. Are we done? I think we're done. All right, cool. Thanks for having me. This was good. I always enjoy it.

It's fun. It was fun, man. Yeah. I had a good time. I hope everyone else enjoyed it as well. Yeah. You can follow me on the socials at Rich Roll. You can follow Adam on the socials at Adam Skolnick.

Leave us a message if you want your question read. 424-235-4626. You can also drop one in the Facebook group. It's just easier if you leave a message, though, then we can organize all of this better. Hit that subscribe button on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify. We're going to have some copious show notes for this episode because we talked about all this research with respect to the movie and all of that. So please check that out out and you can dive deeper into the science.

Yeah, and for all the listeners that sent messages on Instagram after the Maya Gabera story kind of finally came out this week. Right, it came out late. Like everyone's like, what happened? Yeah, it came out late. It was held for a week because of the floods and they didn't wanna have like a big wave story while people were, they felt it came out late. It was held for a week because of the floods and they didn't wanna have like a big wave story

while people were, you know, they felt it was insensitive. So they held it a week, but the timing just is, you never know how timing works. The story blew up. It blew up. It was huge. Maybe because of the timing. And thank you for listeners who read it and reached out.

I appreciate it. It was a great article, man. And it traveled, it was, I think I sent a screen grab. It was like trending on Twitter. I know. A lot of people were reading it. Yeah. Well, everybody likes a video of a big wave surfer.

Yeah. And a badass woman. That's right. Yeah. So we should get her on the podcast. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

She'd be cool. Totally. Awesome. So we'll be back in two more weeks with another one of these. I'll be here. Until then, be well. I wanna thank everybody who helped put on today's show.

Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes, and interstitial music. Blake Curtis for videoing the podcast. Jessica Miranda for graphics. Allie Rogers for portraits. Georgia Whaley for copywriting. DK, David Kahn for advertiser relationships. And theme music, as always, by Tyler Trapper and Harry.

Appreciate you guys. Love you. See you back here in a couple of days with another awesome episode. Peace. This is BBC Radio 1. Thank you.