Ep 13 Climate Basics podcast: Sam Cherubin, author of "The Crisis is Here"
- Greg
- Jan 19
- 52 min read
In this blog:
a summary of Ep 13, provided by AI, is below; and
the entire transcript of Ep 13, provided by YouTube, is at the bottomw of this blog.
CONTACT & BOOKING
Email: Sam@SamCherubin.com
Website: Samcherubin.com
Available for: Keynotes, workshops, consulting, advisory work on climate health
To Purchase Sam's Book:
Canada:
US:
RECOMMENDED READING
Katharine Hayhoe's work — Integration of spirituality, values, and climate communication https://katharinehayhoe.com/
publisher: https://gracefarms.org/
A great example of humor in Climate Communications is Oli Frost: https://olifro.st/
Sam uses the "Sophie Egan approach"—from her book, How to be a Conscious Eater: https://www.amazon.com/Radically-Practical-Guide-Conscious-Eating/dp/1523507381, breaking overwhelming topics into digestible, modular pieces
Summary - Ep 13, Climate Basics Podcast
Chapter 1: Introduction & Purpose of the Book (00:00 – 09:57)
Host introduces Sam Cherubin, author of The Crisis is Here: Protecting Your Health in a Changing World.
Sam explains the motivation for the book: helping individuals and families prepare for climate-related health impacts.
Discussion of climate health being personal, local, and actionable.
Early discussion of “Climate Cat” as a communication tool.
Emphasis on empowerment over fear in climate action.
Chapter 2: Wildfires, Air Quality, and Evacuations (09:57 – 19:57)
Wildfires: impact on air quality, health hazards, and evacuation.
Tools and strategies: setting phone alerts, monitoring air quality, preparing evacuation plans.
Importance of community preparedness and helping neighbors.
Mental health considerations: solastalgia, climate anxiety, and eco-anxiety.
Social media’s role in both spreading awareness and causing anxiety.
Chapter 3: Flooding & Blackouts (19:57 – 39:55)
Flood risks: water contamination, disease exposure, personal safety.
Evacuation and clean-up guidance; awareness of local flood zones.
Blackouts: risks including heat, cold, and carbon monoxide poisoning.
Household preparedness: battery backups, solar power, medication management, go-bags.
Micro preparedness as a form of empowerment and resilience.
Community action: using collective preparation to strengthen neighborhood safety.
Chapter 4: Climate Health as a Personal & Community Practice (39:55 – 49:56)
Three main takeaways from Sam’s book:
Climate health is personal, local, and solvable.
Action is the antidote to climate anxiety.
Families need micro-readiness (not prepper culture).
Earth as a body metaphor: impacts of climate change are like bodily illness.
Micro preparedness integrates climate health into daily life.
Optimism: people are receptive to learning about climate health solutions.
Chapter 5: Writing, Publishing, and Visual Communication (49:56 – 57:12)
Writing the book: challenges and strategies.
Tools: Scrivener, modular chapter structure, checklists, numbered lists.
Editorial process: developmental editing, copy editing, incorporating feedback.
Visual communication: design choices, graphics, Climate Cat character development.
Importance of collaborative editing and iterative design.
Reflections on the publishing process: many decisions, balancing clarity with engagement.
Chapter 6: Reflections, Resources, and Final Advice (57:12 – 58:12)
Sam’s optimism about public engagement and climate readiness.
Long-term concerns: climate migration, coastal city resilience, housing, and food security.
Recommended resources: podcasts (Outrage & Optimism, My Climate Journey), Project Drawdown.
Advice for combating climate anxiety: find your passion within the climate movement.
Book availability and author contact: multiple platforms, website, LinkedIn, Blue Sky.
Closing: host thanks Sam and encourages listeners to engage with the book and Climate Cat.
Summary Transcript - Climate Basics Podcast — Episode 13
Guest: Sam Cherubin, author of The Crisis is Here: Protecting Your Health in a Changing World
Video: YouTube Link
[00:00] — Introduction
Host: Welcome to the Climate Basics Podcast. Today we have Sam Cherubin, author of The Crisis is Here.
Sam Cherubin: Thank you for having me.
Host: Sam, tell us about your book and the motivation behind it.
Sam Cherubin: The book focuses on climate health at the household level. It’s about helping people prepare for wildfires, floods, blackouts, heat waves, and other climate-related events while maintaining their health and well-being.
[05:12] — Wildfires and Air Quality
Sam Cherubin: Wildfires are a growing threat, and their impact on air quality is significant. People need to understand evacuation procedures, safe zones, and how to protect themselves from smoke exposure.
Host: Are there specific strategies households can implement?
Sam Cherubin: Yes. For example, creating an evacuation plan, storing masks and air filters, checking local alerts, and knowing your local shelters.
[12:30] — Community Resilience
Sam Cherubin: Climate health isn’t just individual—it’s community-based. Helping neighbors, creating local preparedness networks, and fostering social connectivity increases resilience.
Host: How does this extend beyond immediate health impacts?
Sam Cherubin: Communities that prepare together can reduce fatalities, support mental health, and maintain social cohesion during disasters.
[19:57] — Mental Health & Solastalgia
Sam Cherubin: Climate anxiety is real. I introduce Climate Cat in the book to make complex topics approachable. Social media exacerbates eco-anxiety but also connects communities. Preparing for disasters and taking small actionable steps empowers people and reduces anxiety.
[29:54] — Flooding Preparedness
Sam Cherubin: Flooding is complex because it involves evacuation, cleanup, and avoiding hazards like contaminated water. People need to:
Understand flood risks in their area
Evacuate to higher ground when necessary
Use phones to set up alerts
Avoid driving through floodwaters
Host: Texas saw fatalities due to late alerts—timely preparation is critical.
Sam Cherubin: Exactly. Also, check local shelters, evacuation routes, and prepare pets. Floods are seasonal, recurring risks.
[31:29] — Blackouts & Home Readiness
Sam Cherubin: Blackouts range from minor inconveniences to life-threatening situations. Preparation is key:
Battery backups for medical devices
Solar or backup lighting
Knowing where to refill medications
Go bags, filled cars, local shelters
Cooling/heating centers during extreme temperatures
Host: The book emphasizes empowerment over fear.
Sam Cherubin: Yes, action is the antidote to climate anxiety. Preparedness is practical and achievable.
[36:01] — Key Takeaways
Host: Three main takeaways:
Climate health is personal, local, and solvable.
Action reduces climate anxiety.
Families need micro-readiness without prepper culture.
Sam Cherubin: Prepper culture focuses on societal collapse; my book emphasizes hope, tools, and household-level preparedness.
[39:55] — Writing Process
Host: How did you approach writing the book?
Sam Cherubin: I followed structured writing exercises, used Scrivener software for organizing chapters, and iteratively experimented with LinkedIn posts. Editorial collaboration was essential: developmental editing for structure, copy editing for grammar.
Host: Did your poetic background influence the writing style?
Sam Cherubin: Yes, minimal text, hanging lines, and bite-sized actionable content make the book readable and engaging.
[46:01] — Climate Cat Design
Sam Cherubin: Climate Cat was designed by artist Dan Dundan. The goal was to make the character approachable—friendly but not cartoony. The character helps convey climate lessons to children.
[49:56] — Climate Migration & Food Security
Sam Cherubin: By 2050, climate migration will be immense:
Coastal cities may relocate inland
Northern regions like Canada may see population growth
Modular housing will be essential
Host: What about food security?
Sam Cherubin: Alternating floods and droughts will challenge temperate agriculture; planning will be essential.
[51:50] — Resources and Podcasts
Sam Cherubin: Recommended resources:
Outrage and Optimism podcast by Cristiana Figueres
The Future We Choose by Cristiana Figueres
My Climate Journey podcast
Climate Base community
Host: Climate Base fosters networking, education, and startup connections in climate solutions.
[54:37] — Eco-Anxiety & Finding Your Purpose
Sam Cherubin: To manage eco-anxiety:
Find a climate-focused area you are passionate about
Engage with like-minded communities
Take concrete actions aligned with your interests
Host: That could be electrifying homes, startups, or personal climate action.
Sam Cherubin: Exactly. Focus on what energizes you—this sustains engagement and combats despair.
[56:16] — Book Availability
Sam Cherubin: The Crisis is Here will be available across all major platforms:
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google, Apple Books
Paperback, hardcover, and Kindle editions
Website: www.samcherubin.com
Social: Active on LinkedIn and Blue Sky
RAW TRANSCRIPT - Episode 13, Climate Basics Podcast
Raw Transcript of Episode 13:
0:00
That would be heat, smoke from fires, air quality, flooding, hurricanes,
0:05
disease spread. Um, clear checklist and concrete steps that families can take to protect themselves. So, that's the
0:11
elevator. That's the elevator pitch. On a on a personal level, I think my purpose is really to help people and to
0:16
protect them. [Music] Welcome to Climate Basics, a podcast
0:22
about the global energy transition and the challenges countries face, presented in an optimistic and realistic light.
0:30
Here are your hosts, Tai and Greg. And please remember to like and subscribe.
0:36
Hi everyone. Today for our episode of Climate's Basics, we have a special
0:41
guest. It is Sam Sherban, the author of a brand new book and it's called uh
0:48
the crisis is here. That's right. Protecting your health in a Changing World. And so we're very
0:53
pleased and honored to have Sam here. And so just as a brief background of Sam and how he got to to write this book,
1:00
Sam is uh an English major and his life has been in communication. He found
1:06
himself uh on the productive side of a healthy computer career where he built
1:12
uh products and uh digital uh platforms for various companies. And then after he
1:18
had uh done his part helping the world that way, he decided to move into the
1:23
climate and the issues about the environment. But Sam is one of these special people. He decided that learning
1:30
about it and being conversant in this area was not enough. Instead, he wanted to help. And so what did he do? He sat
1:36
down for a tremendous amount of time. And he actually sat down and he wrote and he wrote and he wrote and he came up
1:43
with this wonderful book. And this book is a couple hundred pages long. It's a very useful book, very helpful book. Um,
1:49
and we're just delighted to have Sam here because he's launching the book this month in January 2026. But we just
1:55
wanted to give you a very warm welcome. Thank you very much, Sam. And thank you for having me. It's so exciting to be here.
2:00
Now Sam, we have so much to talk about so it's it's almost difficult to figure out how do we start but why don't we start with just if you could maybe you
2:07
could give our listeners an elevator pitch as to so in terms of this book if you were giving an elevator pitch as to
2:14
what your book deals with and why people should be interested and they should be interested by the way but anyways what
2:19
would that be so the I think the real focus is it's a guide book so it's a practical actionoriented guide to the major
2:25
climate health risks that we face and by we kind of North America focused So, America, Canada, and that would be heat,
2:32
smoke from fires, air quality, flooding, hurricanes, disease spread. Um, clear
2:39
checklist and concrete steps that families can take to protect themselves. So, that's the elevator. That's the elevator pitch. On a on a personal
2:45
level, I think my purpose is really to help people and to protect them. That's that's kind of my goal. And by people,
2:51
meaning anybody on the street. So, it's it's the metaphor I use called the ice cream shop. Uh I live close to Yale
2:57
University which is has a giant climate communication center does a lot of great climate work but I was having ice cream
3:03
at a town very close by and I looked around me and said like none of these people understand the climate impacts on
3:08
health. They're literally down the road from this gigantic organization and university but nobody's communicating to
3:13
them. So this was sort of my ice cream metaphor like I love ice cream. I'll go to an ice cream shop but who's talking
3:19
to the people around me? Who's talking to just average regular people going about their lives on this? And how do I
3:25
bring all of this information which isn't really hidden but it's buried in academic papers and American government
3:30
websites which are disappearing. How can I make this easy to understand and easy to consume for people? Right. Well, that that's great. I I So,
3:38
you know, when when I read this book, not only do you do the deep dive, so you do the explanation, but you've also
3:43
formatted it and structured it in a way that it really is a resource guide. You can put it down, pick it back up, put it
3:48
down, and do that over and over over time. You can doggeear the pages. you can put little tabs on it so that if
3:55
there's uh something that you need to to to look at, for example, how do I prepare for an upcoming hurricane or
4:01
potential flooding or how do I prepare if there's a blackout or how do I prepare if I'm in a region where I am
4:06
actually threatened by forest fires? That and many more topics your book covers, but it also covers in a way that
4:13
if I want to pick it up and go to chapter 7, for example, I can. And bam, right right there in chapter 7, I'm into
4:19
it. I've got my checklist, but I've also got the detailed explanation as well as a guide as to where I can go for more
4:25
information. Yes, exactly. And so there was a it that was a bit of a puzzle piece I had to
4:30
solve as I was writing the book, which is what's the structure that's going to communicate this the best. And in in
4:35
prior conversations with Greg, I was saying, I have a product management background, and so we're used to checklists and bullet points and numbers
4:42
and summaries and synopsies. And so that background was super helpful in terms of communication. Like how can I be as
4:47
succinct as possible while still having like very structured information that's easy for people to follow.
4:53
I really think I I really think you did manage that. I've spent so many times with different books about the climate
4:58
and rather than talking about the philosophy of humans and nature or indigenous design methods or uh the
5:06
history of the East India Company or the population of pollinating species in different regions instead of going
5:11
abstract you went so applicable you went so pragmatic so that anyone with
5:17
starting from zero which is actually really the the intended audience for this podcast uh can just pick it up and
5:23
actually start making today real changes is to make themselves more resilient to these potential effects of climate
5:28
change. Really? Exactly. Exactly. The the first draft was more kind of nebulous and philosophical and spiritual
5:35
and I got a lot of good feedback from my editors going we got to bring this down to earth and I had to find a way of
5:40
summarizing that information to make it clear for people because that is what's missing is um we do want to it's what I
5:46
call kind of the low earth orbit approach meaning we look at climate as a gigantic interplay of systems and forces
5:51
and we look at climate solutions like project draw down with you know hundreds analyzing hundreds of solutions. How do
5:58
we go down even smaller kind of to the personal level to the household level? And typically climate impacts don't
6:03
really talk about that. They may talk about energy uh conservation or winterizing your home or insulation or
6:09
your own personal energy use. They don't necessarily focus on what's the impact to your medications. How are you going
6:14
to power your medical device? What should you do with that elderly parent? You know, how do you deal with issues of
6:20
cold, heat, dehydration, flooding, mold? And so we need we it was a bit of a
6:25
weaving of information from a lot of different sources and a lot of different places in and making that succinct and bite-size.
6:32
Yeah, absolutely. And so your book is uh catering towards um primarily the US
6:38
market because of course your book is comprehensive. So you know even in the US as everybody knows there are so many
6:44
different uh environmental uh disasters or crisises that that can arise. So your
6:50
book actually handles all of them and it does it well. So you know in terms of this it's a pretty much a grab bag. You know where do you start? But what if
6:57
it's okay I'd like to start with forest fires because forest fires you know as a topic it's just I mean it's frightening.
7:03
It's the horror movie come to life but unfortunately for us and unfortunately for the the young generation you know
7:09
it's not rare anymore. Um and it does seem that it's not all in the US. I mean, Canada has its more than fair
7:16
share, but it really does dominate the news because the forest fire itself is nearly impossible to contain. What do
7:22
you do, you know, and you're just waiting, you're waiting for disaster to visit upon you. And so, you have looked
7:27
into that topic and you've also given some very practical advice. Maybe you can talk about some of that. Yeah, I think something that we want to bring up is we have areas where people
7:34
are quote unquote used to fires, but now we have forest fires appearing in areas that were very unprepared. And a great example is my state of Connecticut where
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last year even during the fall it was so dry and it was hot enough that we had some major forest fires and Connecticut
7:46
is a very green state an enormous amount of tree cover and so people are very unprepared. So with forest fire if we
7:53
want to break it down there's all of the things you need to do beforehand which is knowing your evacuation routes having
7:59
the right apps on your phone to map the spread of fire to see the progression of the fire but there's also just the
8:05
self-p protection of air quality. Do you have masks at home? Do you actually understand what those air quality
8:10
readings mean? Um and how do we pay attention to them and map um just trends long term? Good place to um mention
8:19
climate versus weather. And so climate long longer term, months, years,
8:24
decades, centuries, millennia, weather, pretty short term. Um so do you understand the progression? Do you and
8:30
by you the reader, do you understand the conditions that make for fires? What's your susceptibility? um on the east
8:36
coast for example of the US we were very susceptible to these giant plumes which are coming down from Canada which had turned the sky orange throughout all of
8:42
the east coast so there's the air quality and understanding the danger of that that uh forest fires themselves
8:48
produce immense amount of particulate matter which is tremendously dangerous and has very long-term effect so big
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topic but if I was to break it down understand your risk download the appropriate apps to your phone and we
9:01
can go over that and make a list I can provide some resources for your listeners understand your evacuation routes. Uh do that be and so you're not
9:08
left scrambling. Understand the importance of packing a go bag and what that's going to contain. Where are you
9:13
going to go? Do you have the ability to refill your medications? You have all of the pet supplies, baby supplies that you
9:19
need. So huge what what seems to be like one disaster is actually rather complex
9:24
with all the things you need uh to do. So, uh, if we were to break that down into bite-sized bits, uh, awareness
9:31
beforehand, evacuation routes, what you need in a go bag, where you're going to go, knowing what to do during a fire and
9:36
making sure you're up to date on the right alerts so you can get out and evacuate if you need to. If you're going to shelter in place, for example, just
9:43
for air quality, no impending fire. Do you understand um, how to secure your house, um, how to create clean rooms,
9:50
how to create a do-it-yourself air purifier, things like that? Right. Yeah. Well, I I I I really did um
9:57
learn quite a bit from from this section. I mean, you it is very helpful what you've done. You've compiled the
10:02
sort of the useful information. Uh but you've also presented a nice way uh so that it's digestible. Um you know, like
10:08
you said, you've broken down into the fact that extreme heat has an effect on
10:13
the human body, whether it's the brain or the lungs or the heart or the kidneys, but but you've also broken it
10:19
down with the air particulate, which is that the fire and the smoke. And you've talked about what cancers can can arise. You talked about uh cardiovascular
10:25
problems, you talked about neurological problems, you know, you've broken it down. What I did find interesting and helpful was that, you know, that you've
10:32
you've given some suggestions as to where people can sign up for alerts. So,
10:37
it's a little bit of the pre-planning, but because fire forest fires move so quickly, you know, if you're signing up
10:43
with your apps and you're on alert, perhaps that can give you a couple extra hours, which can make the difference
10:48
between, you know, getting out safely versus scrambling. Yeah, absolutely. Um, and there also a
10:54
lot of other issues in terms of, you know, do you have a plan for your pets? Do you know where to go in terms of shelter to bring your pets? Do you know
11:01
what you need to bring to that shelter? So, there's a section on on pets and evacuation. So, fires are kind of two
11:06
things, which is air quality and protecting yourself, but also evacuating and and where where are you going and how long can you stay there and and are
11:13
you aware of your local shelters and how to access them and find where they are. And uh to address the general
11:19
format and content, something I really liked about this book, you know, there's so much media these days of charismatic
11:26
individuals telling us what the information is. You avoid that. Instead, you tell us how to get the information
11:32
for ourselves and that is uh an intellectually superior position and I really respect your respect for the
11:38
audience in choosing that. I love it. Thank you. Yeah, I think that one of the things that we have to do particularly in an American environment
11:44
is be very careful of how we curate the information that we're taking in. Where should we go for that? How can we filter
11:50
it out? And uh to your earlier point, kind of one of the subtextes of the book is we need to build community. So
11:57
community locally, but community in terms of social media. How do we communicate crises and health events
12:03
using media tools? How do we use um X, Instagram, Reddit, Telegram, Signal,
12:10
WhatsApp? How can we build groups to communicate this information? And how can we share a correct and vetted public
12:16
health information in the midst of an emergency? It was also fun seeing you mention the uh purple air monitors. That was
12:23
actually in my experience in public health. Uh one of the programs we did was helping to set up those purple air
12:29
monitors across uh across my hometown. Love it. Well, You know, I think um
12:36
you've brought up this issue about community which I think ties into uh the health care issue because of course the
12:42
US has particular challenges when it comes to healthcare. Not everybody has has the the goldplated or platinum
12:49
plated healthcare and if you don't have healthcare that takes care of everything then you really have to be out of sheer
12:54
necessity. You have to be proactive. Um some of the suggestions among the many that you make in your book um you say
13:01
that if you are pre-planning you may wish to have your medical records downloaded and sort of available on the
13:07
cloud so that if you do get stuck somewhere and you need medical attention that it's readily accessible through by
13:13
the hospital by the practitioners in a way that you can tell them well go to this site and get my medical records. Um
13:19
I also really enjoyed I hadn't thought of it but you said that community is is huge community getting to know your
13:25
local area but also having such practical um sort of advice as develop a
13:30
communication tree when when the infrastructure around you is collapsing when everybody is running because they
13:36
they actually quite literally need to run then and you're looking for those who are the most vulnerable the old the
13:42
disabled the young then communication trees could mean the difference between finding someone and not.
13:47
Yeah. Exactly. So, you know, even things like a ham radio. Let me go get my um
13:52
I think he has a ham radio. No, I got my Noah weather radio. So, it's always important to have. So, so to
13:58
be really to prepared, I want to go back to your earlier question about health insurance and and and um what we
14:05
can call the electronic health record. This was in conversations with emergency room physicians who had helped people
14:10
like during Hurricane Katrina when you had giant stadiums filled with people. Somebody arrives unconscious, they have
14:16
no idea what medical conditions they have. there's no information. So, some people do have medical IDs or medical
14:21
bracelets, but now we have the technology that you can download all of this, even if you download it to your phone. We tend to have, at least in America,
14:27
medical records in thousands of places, doctor offices and your health insurance companies and your lab test reports, but
14:34
if you can gather it in one place so it's available and certainly we have the ability to store that securely on the cloud, super helpful if you have to
14:41
evacuate or go to a new place or relocate for a period of time. Right. Yeah. and and uh even even suggestions
14:48
like you um you provide some guidance here if if anybody wants to get first
14:53
aid training in order to be useful not only to themselves but to the community around them and you you actually provide
14:59
some information about free online training for first aid but but you talk about then uh being a little bit more I
15:04
guess in the proactive sense being a little bit more broad in terms of the scope which is that perhaps trying to not only have a
15:11
communication tree amongst the community but also making sure that there are enough people or select people who have first aid training themselves so that
15:17
you're not just you're not just sort of keeping that useful uh skill within one
15:22
or two people but just having it broad and so I I think that that sort of call to action for a community-minded
15:28
response to some pre-planning to having that information and then distributing amongst the community I think that's you
15:34
know I think that's very useful because um decades past perhaps that's you know
15:40
pie in the sky or it's just being very very careful but but as you've said in certain regions this is nothing but just
15:46
sort of you know just avoiding malpractice in a sense like just just wow this is basic we need this type of
15:53
preparation yeah I think one of the subtext of the book is and one of the things that I've been seeing over the past several years is a lot of healthc care is going to
15:59
move to a disaster footing or an emergency footing because climate events are really gigantic public health
16:05
disasters that can impact thousands tens of thousands in some cases hundreds of thousands of people if they're without
16:10
power or without water or if they become stranded and isolated due to a flood. So so much of preparation is going to be
16:17
done at the community level that emergency services are going to be overwhelmed. So what people do to build
16:23
that community resilience or social connectivity now to prepare themselves because the the line that I use is that
16:30
we're at the beginning of the horror movie. We're not in the middle at the end. And so we have time to prepare um
16:37
because climate events are just going to increase. The severity of storms will increase. The heat will increase. The cold will increase. Flooding will
16:43
increase. So, how can we uh look at our reality with new eyes? How can we examine where we live, our
16:49
vulnerabilities to prepare ourselves? That's great. And really again, the the scale question, you mentioned draw down
16:55
earlier. Great website. For those of you who haven't checked it out, check it out. But knowing that refrigerants are a
17:00
huge issue or that we should be growing more kelp in the oceans, that doesn't give me personally a lot of actionables,
17:06
right? And likewise for that middle scale, Greg and I have talked on the in the past on about eco villages, about
17:12
communityrun solar, about micro grids. That's stuff you can do with a fair amount of capital and a whole community,
17:18
but the individual scale where it's easiest to act and and kind of most vital in those moments of emergency. uh
17:26
there is a little bit of a lack of information of clear climate information and all we have is BP's individual
17:32
carbon footprint and even that is more of a guilt ride and not really a set of actionable principles. So really thank
17:37
you for making it focused on what I can do for my house today. You're welcome. Now Sam, another part of
17:43
the book that really hit me and actually the part I jumped to first to see how you would handle it is mental health and
17:50
its ramifications with climate change because for me coming as a professional in the climate and sustainability world,
17:57
this is something that as practitioners we deal with uh as community members when our friends are getting more aware
18:02
of the issues, we're constantly facing the the the doom and the the the feeling
18:08
of helplessness that comes as a default when people are just getting aware of the the poly crisis. And so I really
18:14
loved that section of your book where you just give practical advice, therapy, meditation, breathing exercises for
18:20
helping people deal as individuals and as communities with mental health. Uh
18:26
please uh what what was your thinking? Why did you choose to uh make that a part of the book? And uh why did you
18:34
choose to add cartoons of a cat in a wizard outfit all through the book giving us cute little advice? because
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for me that was kind of really grounding and accessible. Thank you. So two-part question. Um yeah
18:46
let's do uh the uh the wonderful world solstalgia and solstalgia means missing
18:53
you know a world that we had. It's a loss of a sense of place a loss of a sense of home. And so much of our
18:59
reality was built on assumptions about a stable climate. You know you could go outdoors. You could go to the beach in
19:04
the summer. The winter wouldn't be that bad. the cute picturesque river next to your house wouldn't rise up and wash
19:10
away your home. And so when we deal with climate anxiety, it's very very real. People's lives have been upended and
19:16
destroyed. People's houses have been washed away. There's a tremendous amount of fear. But there's also a loss of the
19:22
reality that we knew. And then so there's a sadness around that. And that particular chapter transformed it
19:28
originally started as a kind of generic rehearsal of all of the um pressures on
19:33
mental health today. the explosion of addiction, suicide, depression, anxiety, loneliness. And one of my editors
19:40
suggested, what do you do? Like, what do I personally do for mental health to address climate change? That really
19:46
transformed that chapter from a kind of generic, we're in the middle of the crisis, it's making things worse to, oh,
19:52
well, here's what I do. Here's what helps me. And it turns out it's a whole buffet of different things because
19:57
there's so much to be said for climate anxiety and worry and dread and difficulty and hopelessness that we need
20:03
as many tools as we can to address this. So in a lot of ways it's a fundamental aspect of health and acts the climate
20:11
impacts on health because this is universal like everybody may have asthma everybody may not have electrical
20:16
medical devices that are at risk if the power goes out but the anxiety and depression are impacting millions upon
20:21
millions of people and especially young people if they feel they don't have a valuable world to grow up in um that's a
20:28
tremendous amount of despair and hopelessness that there's no future for the world and that's a very scary very
20:34
scary thing. I was wondering I was wondering whether or not I I could read a couple of quotes from your book um just along the lines
20:41
of Tai's question about the mental health. So um you write nostalgia is the homesickness you have when you're away
20:47
from home and wish to return. Solstalgia is the homesickness you have when you are at home and your home is
20:53
leaving you. So very nicely done. I mean that brings that home. But but also just to the second quote and it just leads or
21:00
it just follows up with what you just said and uh I read it and uh and I I really liked it. So you write, "Children
21:08
lack the language to express their grief, but they feel it. They know when the adults are worried. Some kids act
21:13
out, some shut down, others carry it like a quiet storm behind their ribs."
21:19
So, you know, I I enjoyed that, but maybe you can just describe for the listeners, you know, the types of issues
21:25
that that you're talking about in that section then. Sure. We're talking a lot about anxiety. And I think that if we sort of look at
21:32
the book as the hero's journey, the hero is the reader and the bad guy is both climate change also our own feeling, our
21:39
own anxiety, our own sense of not knowing what to do, being frozen. So there's an internal bad guy um that we
21:46
have to fight against and the way to do that is through action. And one of the solutions for everybody, children included, is that action and awareness.
21:52
I have a lot of resources for parents about how to talk to their kids about climate change resources, you know, age
21:58
appropriate for kids so they can learn about it. But we have to give people some agency. So whether it's kids or adults, to Tai's point, we need a road
22:05
map of things to do. We need to get kids reacquainted with the physical world and its importance. We need to teach even
22:12
small children, you know, the importance of masking in terms of a fire. You know, what is evacuation? What can you pack?
22:18
What are some basic comfort items for kids you pack if you have to evacuate? So, we have to ask ourselves sort of a
22:23
series of questions we never had to ask before. Um, which is how do I keep my family safe through a whole series of
22:29
threats and emergencies. And I think just that ability of knowing that you have a plan can reduce a lot of the
22:35
anxiety and confusion and fear and depression. So the the kind of overarching goal of the book as we've
22:41
said is to give people agency and roadmap and a guide and simple tools that they can use as antidote to some of
22:47
the incredible depression and anxiety that people are already feeling. I mean we live in a remarkably depressing world
22:54
a very depressing time in the world there's a lot happening as the book says the crisis is here. So we have a series
23:00
of escalating crises and how do we give people road map at least out of the um
23:05
unknowing of what to do into the knowing of what to do. Fantastic. Fantastic. Now to address my
23:11
question about climate cat. Climate cat. Climate cat. What a great addition. Makes so much more human to have a cat
23:19
in a cute outfit. Yes. Doing astonishing things. So those climate cat was originally an idea for
23:25
how to communicate about climate and originally he was sort of a jokester and he was making fun of a lot of different things but he evolved I think as all
23:32
great characters do or cartoons do to have his own personality and so in some ways he's a kind of an avatar of me but
23:38
in another way he's got his own independent identity as a fighter for truth and liberty. Um, and it's not
23:45
included in the book, but his enemy is the carbon goddess, and she's this sort of nefarious presence uh filled with
23:52
atmospheric pollution, and that's his enemy that he's battling against. So, are you doing the children's book
23:57
next? Yes, the children's book. The children's will be next. Uh, and ideally, the goal is for each event, fire, flooding,
24:05
intense heat, what can kids do to prepare? So, it would be it would be kid focused, but with very simple tools for them.
24:12
Can't wait for that one. So yeah, at the end of each of these at the end of each of these chapters in your book, you have the cat doing something adorable, giving
24:20
cat verbally uh themed advice that that's basically a synopsis of each
24:26
chapter. That was great. One of the goals was to find a way because fre with climate impacts and health, it can be a litany of death or
24:33
litany of destruction or illness and that's too much for the reader. That's way too intense. You'd have to put the book down. So, Climate Cat in a way
24:40
softens a lot of these messages, makes it more accessible, makes it playful. And in essence, we have to find ways
24:46
about climate communication. And the one of the ones that isn't really used very much is humor. And humor, I think, is
24:52
essential in terms of climate communication. It's such a ponderous topic. And we keep throwing the multi,000page IPCC reports at people and
24:59
saying, "You need to read it all cover to cover and the footnotes and the footnotes." Um, and and it's
25:04
overwhelming. We tend to overwhelm people in clover on the heads. And we don't do that in other areas of life. You don't do that when you, you know,
25:10
join a gym or you uh take up a new food plan. So, we have to make it as simple and as accessible as every other aspect.
25:16
That's great. So, you have this little avatar uh to go back to the hero's journey all the cat is the wise sage
25:23
giving advice to the adventurer. Exactly. Love it. Love it. And
25:29
uh go ahead. Sorry. There's one more section of the mental health section that I just really really loved. uh I was raised as a
25:36
Buddhist and when you mentioned the concept of taking refuge that is to say finding comfort guidance and support
25:41
through difficult times in this other construct for Buddhism it's the the teacher the teachings and the learning
25:47
community the Buddha dharma and sangha then you say we can do that with the climate we can learn from the earth as
25:53
the teacher from natural systems as the teachings and from each other from the
25:59
global community of people that are taking action as the learning community yeah That's beautiful to me and I I that
26:06
that's a framework I'm going to use the rest of my life. Thank you. So a lot of the book the original first draft was much more like
26:11
spiritual. I was talking about the nature of consciousness and the inner climate and as I said I had to move outwardly but some of the poetic uh
26:19
aspects still survive because apart from being a product manager and a corporate guy I'm also a poet and so you have like these poetic sections. I had to balance
26:26
that delicately to not have an overtly poetic book which didn't make a lot of sense to make it much more
26:31
actionoriented but while still containing these sort of these this softness and this kind of spiritual
26:37
awareness of what people can do. So it's not simply pure tactical practical but does have meditative aspects as well.
26:43
Much appreciated. But speaking of practical stuff uh Greg I think you wanted to talk about flooding.
26:49
Yes. However, before we leave um the the issue about anxiety and mental health,
26:56
um Tai, I think you and I have talked about this before like that that conversation is not complete if if you
27:01
don't also include social media because of its overwhelming presence. So, yeah. So, in terms of a social media, it's
27:07
it's um that's also something that you address Sam. Why did you so so you know, why did you find that important? and and
27:14
also it's nice how you approach that issue, but but what is it that you're trying to get across to the reader um
27:20
when it comes to specifically just anxiety, eco anxiety, anxiety about your
27:25
local area, about the world in general and and also the role that social media plays, right? The great Canadian philosopher of
27:31
media, Marshall McLuhan, had a wonderful quote which is all news is bad news, all advertising is good news. So when we
27:38
look at climate news, it's almost unequivocally bad news. It's disasters. It's it's we're traumatizing ourselves
27:45
by looking at these images over and over and over and over again. It's scary and particularly for children. So, we're
27:51
we're in uh we're already in a mental health crisis like we've been talking about. And for kids, social media is a
27:57
huge factor in their mental health. So, my instructions are ways to kind of
28:02
moderate your social media intake. Take some vacations, only check a few times during the day, do it during windows,
28:08
balance the input of negativity with the positives. And I give some really great climate resources including Katherine
28:14
Heiho whose work is wonderful to balance a much more optimistic what you can do perspective. But we're in the midst of
28:20
several interconnecting crises. One is misinformation and disinformation disseminated through social media. One
28:26
is learning how to manage your own social media intake. Um but the other is positive uses of social media to spread
28:32
positive and encouraging messages to spread truthful information during climate crisis. So
28:38
that's what we're trying to do with the podcast. It's a it's a double-edged sword. It can be used for tremendously
28:43
positive reasons. That's great. Yeah, that is. So, okay. Um, as we have
28:49
said, your book uh is comprehensive. So, one aspect I'm sure which is top of mind
28:55
for so many people unfortunately in the United States because there are I mean quite a few regions that really have to
29:00
deal with this is the issue of flooding. whether you know whether or not it's related to hurricanes or particular
29:05
storms, whether or not it's just related to too much rain happening in too short a time frame. You know, we have these,
29:11
you know, horrible um news stories which captivate people because they're rescue
29:17
missions that take 48 hours, 72 hours a week and and and all the rest. So, if
29:22
you're in one of those regions or if your region now is at threat, I'm sure eco anxiety is your constant companion.
29:29
So what are some of the things that people can look for to in your book to sort of deal with this and to prepare
29:34
for it? I think one of the things and another just as there was such a surprise in terms of what do we mean by air? What
29:40
are we actually breathing? What do we mean by flood water? Because we tend to think of rain or river, but we're dealing with combined sewer overflows
29:47
and agricultural overflows and any toxic waste dump that happens to be nearby and the old gas station is uh gasoline has
29:54
leeched into the ground. So flooding brings up everything. That's why it's so phenomenally dangerous. and just heard
30:00
recently from a physician in my area about somebody who got very very sick trying to clean out their basement that had been flooded and they were exposed
30:05
to, you know, all sorts of things. So flooding is is complex because it includes aspects of evacuation if you
30:12
must evacuate, cleaning up your house afterwards, avoiding flood waters, turnaround, don't drown. We had a case
30:18
in Connecticut where people actually drowned in very rapidly moving flood water. So it's awareness of what to do.
30:24
Don't drive through flood water. Obviously evacuate to higher ground. And it gets back to our discussion on how to
30:30
use your phone to set up alerts. So, you know, beforehand, so you you're um
30:35
you're staying very much on top of it, we had a lot of fatalities in Texas where the alerts came too late to actually get people to higher ground in
30:41
the past several months. So, complex topic um but to break it down, preparation beforehand, understanding
30:47
your flood risks where you live, understanding uh are you flood plane, are you in a flood zone, are you close
30:53
to the water? In my area of Connecticut, we're on the coast, so people built their houses on stilts six to eight feet
30:59
above the ground because we've had so many floods in the past. Um, same with fires. Do you know the evacuation route?
31:05
Um, do you know where you stay? Do you know how to evacuate your pets? Do you know where the local shelters are? Um,
31:11
do you know to not wait out into the flood waters? So, complex issue. I think
31:17
we can maybe return to that. I may have more to say on that topic. Right. Well, and and you mentioned uh
31:23
Texas, and I think that uh nicely leads into another major aspect which arises
31:29
when you have climate change uh weather or or and you know, sort of these new threats, which is just simple blackouts.
31:36
I mean, blackouts can be as benign as, oh, it's very annoying and so I don't have power for 6 hours or of course,
31:42
they can be extraordinarily serious. I mean, Texas had winter storm Yuri, which unfortunately led to deaths. uh these
31:48
are things that people do have to be prepared about and uh what are what are some points that um you're hoping to to
31:54
leave with the listeners? We've had several week-long blackouts in Connecticut. So, we've had personal experience with them. There's a lot of
32:01
ancillary things that people need to be aware of during the blackout. For example, lots of people die from carbon monoxide poisoning because they don't
32:07
understand if they never experienced that before. They have a generator and they're bringing it in indoors or they're trying to heat their home with
32:13
their gas stove. So, really things to be aware of. Um, so this comes back to a
32:19
kind of a home health audit that you need to do. Do you have electrical medical devices? If so, do you have any
32:25
kind of battery backup for them? Do you have um any solar power or solar batteries? Do you have lighting? Um, do
32:31
you know where you would go if there was a long-term power outage? Do you know where you'd go to refill your
32:37
medications? Um, if you have to evacuate, do you have a go bag? Do you know how to evacuate your pets? So very,
32:43
you know, uh, it's kind of a list of things you need to do beforehand and being prepared if you do need to
32:49
evacuate or go elsewhere that you're, you know, fully stocked and, you know, you're ready to go. Is your car filled with gas? Do you have a place to stay?
32:56
Do you know where the shelters are locally? Um, and and the vulnerabilities, sorry, the vulnerabilities go from intense heat
33:02
and intense cold during power outages. So if it's intense heat, do you know where the cooling centers are nearby? If
33:08
it's intense cold, do you know where the warming centers? Do you know where you go to get your devices recharged? Things
33:13
I learned while writing the book is you can go to any shelter and charge your devices and get food. You don't necessarily have to stay there for the
33:18
night. So, are are you aware of your own town's preparation? Are you connect to the town health department or the
33:24
emergency services? So, it's a way of kind of educating yourself before the event to know what you're going to do
33:30
during the disaster. Right. Yeah. I I I I very much enjoyed uh going
33:36
through your book. So for me at least reading uh
33:41
your advice in going through the book, it it really uh struck me that what you're trying to do is you're trying to
33:46
give a sense of empowerment to the reader. You're just trying to give them some tools and also the encouragement which is that yes, things are changing
33:54
and things can be quite bad, but you can you can deal with this. You can actually be prepared and you can also do things
34:00
to be proactive. And and part of the proactive message that I enjoyed um in your book was that it's not just perhaps
34:06
yourself or your immediate family. You can reach out. You can use this as an opportunity to get to know the community
34:12
around you. See what resources they've set up and then perhaps with the use of your book as the guide uh suggest sort
34:19
of further steps that the community can take just just in case because as you've indicated a lot of these things are just
34:25
annual reoccurring seasonal matters like forest fires. If you are in an area with forest fires, you are looking out for
34:31
this every single year. If you are an area where flooding is prevalent, you are looking out for this every single
34:37
year. This is just not something which is once in a generation. Perhaps it used to be. Now it is going to visit you. If
34:43
you get lucky one year, you may not be so lucky in year two. Century storms, right? The now or every
34:50
year, every year. Every year, right? Yeah. Go ahead. The community focus really is so
34:56
important. I think my favorite meme of all time. It says you're exhausted because you're dealing with systemic issues as an individual.
35:03
Right. Right. And and addressing when you have a flood or a fire, that's not something
35:08
that just your household is experiencing. That's something that all of your neighbors are too. And it's this this golden opportunity to to rebuild
35:14
the community that in so many other ways we've lost as a society. Exactly. And communities do come together during disasters. I think the
35:20
method of the book is let's come together before the disaster hits so we can kind of do our preparation together. Yeah.
35:25
Um Yeah, abs. Absolutely. Communities really kind of the solution of the book
35:30
and it's part of the aspect of empowerment. They're always uh the subtext at least in this country
35:36
is systems are falling apart and so we need something in their place um that
35:41
can support us and that's really community and and your local city town neighborhood to how to bring climate
35:46
like I say from the giant global level down to the household level. Right. Well, and and Sam, so cribbing on
35:54
on what you've given in the book. So, if if it's possible to uh to boil it down
36:01
to three main takeaways, I guess um your three takeaways as you've written is one that climate health is personal, local,
36:08
and solvable. And number two, what I really like as the empowerment bit,
36:13
which is number two, action is the antidote to climate anxiety. And number three, um, families need micro readiness
36:21
but not prepper culture. So I think those are great takeaways, but but yeah, maybe you could comment upon that
36:27
particularly. I like how you mentioned that this is not prepper culture. This is not something where, you know,
36:33
disaster is all around you. It's going to swamp you. This is more about trying to take charge and being prepared.
36:39
Yeah. I think the the prepper culture is is um um, how do we put it? It's kind of
36:44
a facing of Armageddon. It's a dystopian. It's assuming complete societal collapse. And I don't think
36:50
that's really the issue. That's not really helpful because that then is going to paralyze people with fear and despair. And we want to give we the
36:57
climate movement as a whole, we want to give people hope. We don't want to be the these uh we don't want to make
37:02
people worse than they already feel. We want to give them tools which can help them get out of their despair. And so
37:08
one of those tools is looking at climate health actually not in terms of just gigantic earth systems but in terms of
37:14
wellness. So if we approached it as people are very interested in their diet, they want to get more protein, they want to exercise, they want to
37:20
hydrate. How can we make this part of people's health regimen? How can we bring that into the home and the way
37:26
that people plan for their family vacations or plan to insulate their house or plan on a new air conditioning
37:32
system? How can we make this a part of their daily lives and daily planning so that we can protect them and they can be
37:37
safe? Because the if we get back to the litany of death and destruction, that's a very big list. The number of potential
37:44
people who could die from intense heat for example or any new infectious disease spread by insects. So how can we
37:51
create a culture of like you say micro readiness, micro preparedness so we can
37:56
look at the climate health threats that people face and give them confidence that they can be they can face it. that
38:02
can be the heroes of that story. That's great. So, here we have for the
38:07
emergencies what you have to have prepared ahead of time and it fits in with a larger cultural shift that we
38:13
have to undergo where we're thinking about our health as individuals, as communities and as an as a global
38:19
ecosystem, as a biosphere. Now, that that's great. Yeah. I think one of the metaphors that help me in writing the book is we look
38:25
at the earth as a body. It's struggling in its thermmorreulation. It's struggling to adjust its own systems.
38:30
And that's what's happening our physical bodies as well. We have to really struggle to adapt to particulate matter
38:36
in the air to pollen to heat to cold and we're struggling too and human body systems are going to fail because of
38:42
that. So it's helpful to look at the macro giant level and the micro level well and the earth you know this is our
38:48
home apart from everything else and as the home gets injured we get injured. That's great and it's actually an
38:54
allegory I've used many times in my own work. the earth as a body. Sure, it
39:00
sounds benign. One degree, 1.5 degrees Celsius. What does that matter? Well, okay, if you're home with a flu and I
39:07
take your temperature and you're two degrees above normal Celsius, yeah, you're feeling it. And so, so does the Earth.
39:13
Yeah. And the fact that temperature alone, we can't use that as our sole measure. It's ocean acidification. It's
39:20
the university loss. Yeah. Huge. There's so many other markers that are happening. So it's a climate change
39:25
is really a kind of a climate collapse and an illness of the earth looked at in one way and and that has tremendously
39:31
cascading impacts to us. Yeah. Well, and just like with the body, you don't
39:37
just have a fever, you have an infection. Yes. Yeah. So Sam, um if it's okay, I I have a
39:44
question that I just been I've been dying to ask. Sure. So you actually went beyond you
39:50
went beyond I mean everybody Tai me everybody has thought about writing you
39:55
know we all have these substacks or mediums or what have you and I personally get into about maybe 150 175
40:02
words and then I just throw it away because it's just nonsense. So you went beyond like just just tell us like what
40:08
what has the process been like writing a book getting past page 10 getting past
40:14
page 50 you know actually putting it together. Well, one of the impetuses for writing this book was a book called
40:19
Publish Your Purpose. Um, it was written by the owner of the publishing house that I'm working with. And I saw the
40:25
book and I like, "Wow, what a great title. I wonder if I have a purpose. I wonder if so, I bought the book, began to think about it, and she actually had
40:31
a six-month writing program where I got to work with her and answer a lot of these questions." And coming from a
40:37
corporate background and knowing how to do corporate communications or being a poet really doesn't prepare you for writing pro, completely different
40:42
animal. So there's a software called Scrivener which is very very helpful because you can organize different
40:49
chapters, move them around. Super helpful software. So that would be recommendation number one. Recommendation number two is people set
40:55
themselves out a certain amount to write per day. 250 words, 500 words, 1,000 words. Just begin writing. That's super
41:02
super helpful. It doesn't necessarily have to cohhere or have a chapter structure. But if I hadn't gone through
41:07
that exercise and talked about geoengineering and the philosophy of climate change like Tai was saying, you
41:14
know, my spiritual background, I wouldn't have landed on this. And so, uh, it has been said and it's true, we
41:20
work out a lot of the problems with writing by writing. So, by writing more and finding my own voice in my own file
41:26
and publishing, I I'd actually published some articles on LinkedIn to kind of experiment. What's my voice? What do I
41:31
have to say? And then to solve things. So we it's I think important to go into
41:36
writing with a question. And so my question ultimately was how do I what's the structure that's going to communicate the best and here's book
41:42
called how to be a conscious eater by Sophie Egan which was small modular all about food but each chapter was
41:49
self-contained she had a lot of graphs and I was like okay numbered lists checklists which I love this is a
41:56
solution that I can use and then working with my editor what's what's it going to include how do we approach this because
42:01
it's such a vast topic and there's so much like we were saying misinformation social media use how to talk to doctor,
42:07
the emergencies themselves, um how to create neighborhood preparedness plans. So, how do I make it
42:13
in such a way that it's linear, that it makes sense, and that it's telling a story? So, that that's a part that
42:19
really requires editors and feedback and people reading your writing and maybe you should move this here, maybe you
42:24
should take this out, this doesn't make sense. Can you explain this? So, it becomes it what goes from um kind of a
42:31
like being a poet. you just sort of do it on your own looking out the window beful now becomes this very
42:37
collaborative affair where you're getting feedback on your work and having to swallow some hard truths and
42:43
incorporate it and so uh in terms of writing a book like this there's around what's called developmental editing
42:48
where they're kind of looking at the big chunks and the arrangements and clarification but then there's copy editing which is like line by line word
42:54
by word grammar um and I've got some particular I maintain almost like a
43:00
poetic line like the single free floating line that's separate from everything else because it breaks up the
43:05
page. So I was interested in how do I communicate almost like a poet would almost like the uh paragraphs are
43:11
stanzas. And so that was part of my communication. That's a bit of a poetic background which is like I don't really
43:16
want dense text because poem my poems don't work like that. They're minimal and you've got hanging single lines. So
43:22
there's a lot of those hanging single lines when I have to say something that I want to stand out. So I'm bringing um
43:28
you you have to bring yourself into your writing at the same time you're getting feedback from others and who are telling
43:34
you the truth whether you want to hear it or not and how to adapt your writing that to make it really understandable
43:39
and clear and the fact that the writing kind of sings to you like a poem would
43:44
for both of you is very gratifying to me because that means as an author it's succeeding um because that was the
43:51
intention to make it engaging while not being overwhelming, informative while
43:56
Oh, it's like I can't make 500 changes. I can't do it and put the book down to make it bite-sized, actionable, doable,
44:04
um to give people confidence. That was really the goal. I I think you've achieved it. And it
44:09
sounds like your last silent suggestion for writing is having an editor you like working with. Yes. Writing with editors, being open to
44:16
feedback. Um yeah, Go ahead. Were Were there any um were there any
44:21
surprises through this entire process? whether good surprises or maybe not so good surprises like just unexpected
44:27
because it's not just the writing and the editing although that is the line share but you're also moving it towards
44:32
publishing you're also dealing with you know marketing there are very concrete steps that you're dealing with but of
44:38
course when you're at the substack or medium blogging phase right you it's
44:43
it's tough to put those pieces together did did anything sort of now looking back on it did anything surprise you
44:49
yeah I think how hard it was uh because I'm sort of naive as a poet that I always wanted to I'm writing a poem.
44:54
Like how hard can it possibly be? Um the minutia of doing, you know, graphic design types of bullet points,
45:01
you know, we've got traditional bullets and we've got lightning bolts and we've got check marks. One of my goals because
45:06
I have a having worked with UX designers for so long, an eye for design and making the design a real part of that
45:13
book, um and to avoid it just being a series of check marks, just being a
45:18
series of bullets. So how to approach design holistically like it makes sense just everything being you know
45:24
participating in the cover design um the graphics in the interior what graphic
45:30
should I choose like Tai had pointed out earlier there's a graphic that he had used um in his public health work so
45:35
what do I choose how do I make this simple and and not overwhelming um so
45:40
just I would say thousands of decisions they say enlightenment is a thousand right decisions so publishing a book is
45:46
a thousand decisions you have to from everything from, you know, what kind of bullet points to, you know, what should
45:53
be omitted from the book to what graph should I use? One very banal by comparison question about design. Uh, the cat has a very
46:01
specific feel. Are you the the visual creator of Climate Cat or are you working with an artist? No, the artist, his name is Dan Dundan,
46:07
and he's a Connecticut artist. Originally, they were a all AI. Um, and so they were wildly kind of different in
46:13
form and I work with this designer and we did a lot of iteration and it it's he's got to be friendly without being
46:19
cartoony and he's somewhat humanoid but sometimes he's a pure cat. So it's a little bit
46:24
like a balance between the two. You hit it because on some of them I I I showed one to my wife. She said he looks
46:31
kind of worried but also kind of puzzled and it was perfect for the context. Great and also exactly like a cat. So yes,
46:37
that was the goal and and I, you know, look forward to a lot more Climate Cat in those children's books. And I'm looking forward to that.
46:44
A second book which I think might want to I haven't written it yet, which would be Climate Cat's Guide to Geoengineering
46:49
because that's really in the news and is going to be sold to us as the only solution for climate change. So Climate
46:55
Cat's got a lot to say about that. So do I, but we do not have time for that. No, we don't have time for that. So yes,
47:00
we'll return to that in podcast number two. Okay. Yeah. Excellent. We'll do. Okay, Sam. So the
47:07
publishing date is here finally January 2026. Your creation is now birthed.
47:13
After going through this, you know, difficult process, more difficult than you thought it would be, longer, more
47:19
work than you thought it would be. So, so just for the listeners, maybe you can let us know like after going through
47:24
this and thinking deeply about the topic, are you are you more optimistic about climate change and our ability to overcome? Are you perhaps a little bit
47:31
more pessimistic? Like where do you stand? So I'm optimistic about people's readiness to receive the message. I'm
47:37
very optimistic that it's it's a public topic and particularly climate change impacts on health. This is being discussed in a way that wasn't before.
47:44
This would been kind of a rarified subject a few years ago and it would be a couple of doctors and nurses on the
47:50
call with a couple of doctors and nurses listening and that would be it. So the fact that it's really in wide discourse
47:55
now that at least the physicians of America are very very aware of that we're seeing climate impacts on health
48:01
in the emergency room in terms of chronic conditions. It's it's definitely there. So, I'm optimistic in that the
48:08
uptake in the in just the general audience is is it's happening. It hadn't
48:14
really happened before, but due to a lot of the recent policy changes, very much a part of public discourse. So, I'm
48:19
really really gratified about that. Um, you know, I think in this discourse, like we mentioned before, we there's so
48:26
many aspects when we talk about climate, we have the earth systems themselves, we have climate solutions, we have the grid, we have the things that you've
48:32
discussed on your podcast. This is a the tiny little subset of that that impacts
48:37
people where they can do something about it. So, I personally can't stop the geopolitics of the prostates globally. I
48:44
can do something about my family preparedness. So, we're taking a lot of things that people may feel helpless about and giving them a road map for the
48:51
things that they can do now. So, I'm very optimistic even in terms of climate messaging that there's a there's an
48:56
engaged audience who's ready for this in a way that they probably weren't even a couple of years ago. There were other things that were much more pressing in
49:03
terms of the the globe's ability to deal with climate change. I'm not sure that any of us are optimistic about that. I
49:09
think there's some, you know, immense hurdles that we need to overcome. But in terms of people's ability to solve this
49:16
for their lives, I'm very confident that I can help them and that they're they'd be receptive to hear the lessons of the
49:21
book. Well, that's great. I that's very thoughtful. I'm going to take that as a win for optimism.
49:26
Yes. And so, okay, so we've got a a couple more wrap-up questions. Um, looking uh
49:33
ahead 2050, now that you've had this opportunity to think so deeply about this, are there any things that you see
49:38
that um that that people, you know, might be want might want to be aware of or think about in terms of long term
49:44
that uh that maybe they're not uh sort of focusing in on at this point? Yeah, I think climate migration is going to be
49:49
immense and I think that the moving of coastal cities inland is going to be immense and coastal city resilience
49:56
whether through seaw wall whether through moving to a higher elevation you know we're going to be seeing a lot of discourse around that anything from you
50:03
know New York to Miami we have to solve for this but for for number one I think Canada is about to become a lot more
50:08
populous I think that there's going to be an enormous move to the north and just as you had Canadians moving to
50:14
Florida over the winter to chase the heat now people are going to chase cool weather or temperate weather. And a lot
50:20
of the United States is going to be largely uninhabitable due to heat. The heat's going to be so intense that it's going to make functioning extremely
50:26
difficult. So we see just a movement north, the north in this country, the US, but also north into Canada as we
50:31
find attractive places to live that are, you know, near fresh water. So we're going to be seeing, you know, radical migration of a level that we really
50:38
haven't seen before. And that also means we need fast modular housing that we can put up for people that we can't just
50:44
say, "Let me build you a $500,000 condo. Let me build something that's going to be accessible that you can actually move
50:50
into because when we're talking migration, there's millions and millions and millions of people." Um, so
50:55
so an episode on judic housing then and another episode on the retreating patterns of crops across the the
51:03
tempered zones. Yeah. So there's a lot to unpack here. you know, how do you feed a country in
51:08
the midst of climate change? You know, when you've got alternating floods and drought and destruction and so these are
51:15
things that we haven't really thought about and and like all crisis, only going to address it when the crisis is upon us. We're not actually going to be
51:20
proactive and prepare. We'll wait till disaster hits and then we'll respond to it.
51:26
Okay. Less optimistic there, but less optimistic there, right? Although, yeah, if you want to move to Canada,
51:32
please do. We welcome you. The only thing is is that you do have to sign up for the hockey channel and you do have to talk about hockey uh three or four
51:39
times a day. Yeah. As long as you have to eat. Yeah. And you have to eat poutine which is fine by me. That's right.
51:44
On fries. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Um Okay. And so Sam, do you have any uh do you have a book or an
51:50
article that you've read lately that uh that you like that you'd like to pass on to the listeners? Yeah, there's a couple of podcasts. One
51:56
is outrage outrage and optimism by a woman named Cristiana Fuggeras who I quote in the book who wrote the future
52:02
we choose which is surviving the climate crisis which I quote pretty heavily in terms of fossil fuel all the drilled
52:07
podcast um very very important um and also I there's a group called my climate
52:13
journey and they have a podcast and they have a membership community that's really about because I'm also very
52:18
interested in this topic founders of of uh climate solutions companies so there's a lot of that and they have a
52:23
pretty extensive library of interviews that they've done with people. So I'm very interested in climate solutions across the board. And
52:30
so so you're going to mention us next time. Someone asked your podcast. And so to you know to your
52:35
point if and do mention this in the book the other if I wasn't involved in climate and health it would probably be forestation projects that I involved
52:41
with because that's a great love of mine and that's a whole other topic that I would love to get more involved in but it's a little hard to do everything all
52:48
at once in terms of climate. So maybe part two. Right. Well it it's great that you
52:53
mentioned uh MCJ my climate journey. They are a very good organization and they're they're actually a very useful resource for um being a community a
53:01
closed community of people in the industry and so they also produce a lot of great content. But if we're going to
53:06
plug MCJ, we should also be plugging Climate Base. Climate Base where we all met. That's right. Shout out to Evan, the
53:12
founder and his wonderful crew. The three of us are Climate Base alumni and that's exactly how we met. Ty and I met
53:19
and then Sam, we met you as well. And as a result of this, you know, it's been a lovely journey for us because we got to
53:25
read an excellently prepared book and we got to meet you and talk about this because it is this climate based
53:32
organization I think is just doing great things. I think they are actually the founder of the climate weeks that are
53:40
really taking over by storm. city after city after city is now uh creating a
53:46
climate week which is just bringing down to you know grounds uh boots on the ground sort of level allowing the
53:52
message to percolate through but yeah it's a it's a great organization I think uh you know I very much enjoyed going
53:57
through the process the speakers were wonderful the materials were excellent and the the lecturers the the teachers
54:03
were also excellent I thought the most important sorry the most important part was the community of
54:08
fellow learners I think with the close of cohort 8 now there's about 4,000 thousand of us alumni. Wow.
54:14
And everyone I've talked to has been a wealth of knowledge on their fields including you.
54:19
Yeah. So for for the listeners, climate base it's it's an educational community. It's a way to meet founders or
54:25
co-founders if you want to create a startup. It's a way for people to get jobs in climate. Uh it's a way for just
54:31
networking and to meet people like we've done. So wonderful organization. Yeah. Excellent. Okay. Couple more
54:37
questions. Sam, you've been so generous with your time. Um, but we've talked quite a bit and your book deals with the
54:42
issue of eco anxiety. So, so on the other end, you've made it through the book, writing it and getting it
54:48
published and all the rest of it. Do you have any sort of uh final words to to help people who are dealing with climate
54:53
anxiety that that you've sort of gleaned through this process? Yeah, I think it's find your love, find
54:58
the part of the climate community that really you're passionate about or that you can plunge into. You know, for me it
55:04
was definitely climate and health. But as I said, the fast follow-up would have been reformation.
55:09
So I I think if you if I looked at it personally, it's it's climate communication is very very important to
55:16
me. And how do we get this message to people, but find the thing that you love? Find the thing that if you plunge
55:21
into it, you'll never get tired of and build your connections through that. And so either climate based, LinkedIn,
55:27
surprisingly enough, thousands of climate folks and climate people can be very generous with their time. Nobody's
55:33
ever turned me down for a discussion. So, I think it's a way of reaching out and networking to people regardless of
55:38
what your goal is. If it's to work in climate, if it's to get more informed, if it's to build a startup, um if it's
55:45
just to electrify your home or your vehicles, if it's to protect your health, find the thing that you're really excited about that you can bounce
55:51
out of bed doing and never get tired of and and make that your own. Uh, that's why I like Project Draw Down because of
55:57
all of the solutions, there's got to be something there that people are going to like or get involved with. It's it's
56:02
finding the thing that kind of sings to your soul. Finding the things that that you could do for a career for a lifetime.
56:08
You're a guy. Yeah, absolutely. Find your purpose. Yeah. Well said. So, um, Sam, plug your book.
56:16
Tell people how do they get a copy of your your book, but also if any listeners want to reach out to you and
56:21
touch base with you, how how should they do so? So the book is going to be available on um across all platforms,
56:26
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, uh uh Google, Apple Books, and by the time this uh
56:33
podcast is released. So hopefully by the 19th of this month, uh people the book will be available in both paperback,
56:38
hard coverver, and um Kindle versions or ebook versions if you if you're not a Kindle user. Um you can reach me at
56:44
samsamcher.com. Um I've got a website with a contact form that could use. I'm super active on
56:50
LinkedIn and on Blue Sky, so I'm easily accessible. If people have questions or they want to talk about the book, that
56:56
would be phenomenal. His website has a bunch more resources and cute little bits more about the
57:01
climate cat. Climate cat and we'll bring in more and we'll bring in more climate cat and soon there will be climate cat animations and so we're going to see
57:07
and everybody will want to talk to climate cat rather than Sam Cheraban. So I'll be a victim of my own creation.
57:12
Right. Well, we will put that information as well in the show notes for anybody who wants to follow up. So thank you very much. Thank you to
57:18
everyone who's listening and thank you very much to you Sam. This has been our absolute pleasure to speak with Sam
57:24
Sherin, the author of a fantastic book, The Crisis is Here: Protecting Your Health in a Changing World. It's
57:30
available on all the platforms, Amazon and all the others. So, please go get yourself a copy. And Sam is, as you can
57:36
see, just incredibly approachable. So, if you have any questions, yeah, follow up with him directly. But thank you very much, Sam. We do need to then reserve
57:43
our spot with you as a guest speaker for us when you publish your next book. So whether or not that's the children's
57:49
edition or Canada or Mexico, what have you, or geoengineering, geoengineering, we're going to put you on the spot and we're going to ask you
57:55
to to to confirm with us that you're going to return in order to Absolutely. Absolutely. Be my pleasure. It was a wonderful experience.
58:02
Okay. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode
58:07
of the Climate Basics podcast. Please remember to like and subscribe and leave
58:12
us your comments. We look forward to seeing you next time. Goodbye.
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