You can also listen to this interview on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Follow Peter on Twitter @ClimateHuman
Hey, everyone!
Our paid subscribers had a wonderful Earth Day conversation with Peter Kalmus the other night and we want you to see it.
Peter is a data scientist a NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and an associate project scientist at UCLA's Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science & Engineering. In addition to his scientific work, he is the author of the book, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution.
You’ll love this, I promise.
Many thanks to Peter. Enjoy the interview…
MW
Marianne Williamson:
Hi, everyone. I want to welcome you to a very special gathering here tonight for our Substack community. Peter Kalmus is with us tonight. Peter wrote a book called Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution. Peter as someone who embodies the transformational energy and movement that is going to change this world. And I say this because he is a climate scientist. He is a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as an Associate Project Scientist at UCLA's Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering.
Marianne Williamson:
He has a Bachelor's degree in Physics from Harvard. He has a PhD in Physics from Columbia University. He's the most followed climate scientist on Twitter and he writes and talks and lives meditation, mindfulness, spirituality, personal transformation. He is someone who doesn't just talk about it, but truly understands the changes that have to occur on the inside as well as the outside and their intimate connection. So, Peter Kalmus, thank you so much for being with us tonight.
Peter Kalmus:
Thanks. Yeah, I don't get to talk about the sort of spiritual side very much, so I'm actually really excited about this, too. I should also say that I'm here and I'm speaking on my own behalf. So, I-
Marianne Williamson:
You mean NASA doesn't want to talk to us about meditation tonight? Well, I bet you're not-
Peter Kalmus:
I think a lot of people at NASA do meditate and I mean, this was-
Marianne Williamson:
And that's true at the Pentagon, also.
Peter Kalmus:
There's so, yeah.
Marianne Williamson:
I mean, they're such an undergrad, yeah.
Peter Kalmus:
There's so much science behind it, too, about the neuroplasticity. I kind of think about it as sort of, it's like piano practicing, but for kind of non-attachment and sort of ego dissolution and not reacting and escalating things. So, when if somebody comes to you with bad energy, like anger for example, your natural reaction is to react with anger. And so, it takes a lot of work to change that really, really deep habit pattern. So, that's why, it's like it is like practicing piano. It's like a 10,000 hour kind of thing.
Marianne Williamson:
Well, you're working on your attitudinal muscles. It's no different than when you go to the gym, it takes work. But next time, I see some tweet from you about, about your emotional attachment to something going on, I might remind you of your own words. So, everybody I want to read this sentence from Peter's book. "These two seemingly disparate things, reducing my own fossil fuel use and increasing my ability to love are actually intimately interconnected." So, once again, this book, here's a book by a climate scientist about reducing fossil fuel consumption, about how important this is. This book explains the science behind all of that and the final chapter is called love. So, to everybody, open your-
Peter Kalmus:
I was especially proud. I was really proud of that chapter, too.
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah, well, I'm proud of it, too. I'm proud of you, too. Okay. Let's go back a little bit because I think your own personal story really clarifies a lot of your journey, not only as a scientist, but as a person. Tell us a little bit. How did you become this bicycling, gardening guy from the kind of scientific background that you began with?
Peter Kalmus:
Well, so it was in 2006, I was halfway through my PhD in New York City and my first son was born and that was like a huge seismic event in my life. And it kind of like jolted me out of just thinking about myself a little bit and started thinking about the future more. And that was the same year that Inconvenient Truth came out. And then, I also heard a lecture that really scared me from Jim Hanson. It was a scientific lecture about energy and balance on the earth. About more energy come coming in and going out and how that means the earth is heating up. And so, those things all got me thinking about the future and thinking about climate change, which up to that point felt like a distant science fiction thing to me. I was young. I was in New York City. I was having a lot of fun. I was doing science. And I'd been blissfully ignorant of where earth was heading and how fast it was happening and how serious it was going to be. So, I wasn't in denial, but I was just ignorant. I just didn't know. And so when I found out about that stuff, I kept reading more about it and getting more concerned and feeling more weird about getting gaslighted because again, 2006, very, very different time than now. Back then it was not being reported. It was not in the news the way it is now and people on the street would roll their eyes at you, friends at lunch, other PhD students, I'd go to lunch. And I'd be like, "This climate changed thing’s really serious," and I would get eye rolls and people didn't, they weren't ready to hear about it. They didn't want to talk about it. The undergraduates and their green clubs at Columbia, they were doing things like they had initiatives to get plastic bags out of the dining hall, but I would talk to them about climate change and they were like, they would, they rolled their eyes, too, just like everyone else. So, I didn't really feel that there was any avenue to activism at that time and activism is hard, too. It's not something that you just figure out how to do really, at least I did, and at least back then in 2006. So, it was this weird, learning about the climate science while I was doing astrophysics. Talking to people, feeling the social gas-lighting. My dad at that time was deep in climate denial, so we had conversations on the phone that would go for hours and hours and hours. So, it was that weird mix of trying to figure out activism before climate activism was really a thing. Learning about the science and feeling gaslighted all at the same time and wondering like, "Did I get something wrong? Maybe I misunderstood the science." And then I'd read more science and be like, "No, I totally understand this, so how come no one's talking about it?" It was a very surreal time and it took me another four years of that before I got so sort of afraid of what was coming that I'm like, "I have to do something. I got to make some change."And I'm like, "Well, I'm still flying in planes. I'm still burning lots of fossil fuel." I don't even know how much I'm burning. So, one night, I just like I got down. I just got on the internet. Googled how much fossil, how much carbon dioxide, how much climate impact from natural gas, how much from flying in planes, how much from driving in a car. How much does burning one gallon of gasoline put up into the atmosphere? And I made a pie chart of all this stuff I did in a year. How much I flew. I estimated the miles for that year, 2010. Estimated how much I drive. I did a lot of research and this was all in a couple of hours. I tried to figure out how much came from food, which was one of the biggest uncertainties back then. A lot of research has been done since then, but in 2010, it was still kind of not, it was sort of new territory, the climate impact from agriculture and food. But I did my best. I made a pie chart and I was shocked. And I thought at that time I was like, "Man, I got to put solar panels on my roof." It turned out that flying, which I'd never even thought about, was 75% of my emissions at that time and electricity was tiny. It was the least. Out of the seven categories I looked at, it was the smallest. So, then I just kind of like started reducing because it felt gross to burn the stuff to me. I just didn't like knowing that I was heating the planet and having at that time I had two sons, so I had another son born in 2008, about a year and a half later. And so, knowing that I was heating up the planet, knowing what it was going to do for the future, it just felt kind of gross or sort of a little bit disgusting kind of, I guess. I know that's a strong word, but that's just how it sort of felt to me. So, that motivated me to reduce my emissions. And then what I discovered was I liked it better, the gardening and the biking. I got healthier. I used to have these really bad sinus infections. Every time I got a cold, I would get the sinus infection that would last for basically until I took antibiotics and it was really not a lot of fun. The biking totally got rid of that, which was a real surprise. And so, all the things I was doing to reduce my emissions were kind of a lot of fun and they were weren't as bad as everyone sort of made them seem like they would be. And that's what drove me to write the book, because I didn't hear anyone saying that at that time. No one was like, "It could actually be great to use less fossil fuel." And I was hoping, so again, I'm a scientist. I do all these experiments to try to see what will make social change. And I'm like, "Wow, this is really surprising information that reducing, that using less fossil fuel could actually lead to more community, more friendships, a feeling of satisfaction, more connection that's healthy, being healthier, saving money," all of that stuff. I want that message to get out and maybe it will be socially transformative. Maybe if we stop this thing of like, "So, I'll just sacrifice. It's horrible." Living without fossil fuel is going to be some horrible thing. Maybe the real, the truth that it's not so bad could be transformative. So, that's what motivated me to write the book. And it turned out it wasn't transformative. So, I did the experiment-
Marianne Williamson:
What do you mean it wasn't transforming?
Peter Kalmus:
That people, even today, when they fly, they don't fly less. They just kind of ask me permission. They're like, "I'm so sorry. I've got to take this flight." I'm like, "I'm not the person to decide whether you would fly or not."
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah, I'm going to Cleveland tomorrow. I was going to ask you about that. I was going to ask you, What am I supposed to do? I'm going to support Nina Turner. The planet will be better if she's in Congress. What am I supposed to do, ride my bicycle?
Peter Kalmus:
No. It's like you have to make your own decisions. So now, that we've got Zoom, I used to think to myself, well, so 2012 was when I took, and we're getting right into the core of the really socially contentious stuff, so flying really kind of brings it out. People listening right now are probably having really strong thoughts about what we're saying about flying, but-
Marianne Williamson:
I know.
Peter Kalmus:
Yeah, go ahead.
Marianne Williamson:
I just want to take a moment to bring everybody up to speed -
Peter Kalmus:
I've given you the long form answers, too, so if-
Marianne Williamson:
No, the long form answers are good. I just want to make sure everybody really gets the bigger pieces of the narrative here. So, Peter is a scientist, hardcore climate scientist. Works for NASA, Harvard, Columbia. I mean, this is the serious climate scientist, but he realized, and he lives, as I said, that in order to be an activist in the 21st Century, everybody knows the data. His whole book and all of the environmental movement is about how we absolutely must stop fossil fuel extraction. But what Peter has come to understand and what I think we've all come to understand is that just having that data is not enough and just trying to convince people intellectually is not enough. We have to go deeper. We have to go deeper and it has to begin with our own lives. He calls the book, Being the Change, and of course we all know the illusion to Gandhi, we must be the change we wish to see happen in the world because Gandhi said, "The end is inherent in the means." We are the means. Everything we do is infused with the consciousness with which we do it. So, when Peter talks about how, and there are beautiful parts in the book where he really talks about his own spiritual awakening to what he calls the bankruptcy of modern life. And there's a beautiful part in the book when he talks about how he and his wife bought their house and he got rid of some of the concrete in the backyard to start planting and what it has meant to him to plant. What it had meant to him to be more of a bicycle rider. And his wife talks about, his wife goes on, I mean, God bless her. I couldn't go as far as she goes. I mean, it's incredible the link...
Peter Kalmus:
She really-
Marianne Williamson:
... that you guys go to practice what you preach. But even though, everybody, we might not all find ourselves able to go quite as far as Peter and his wife go, but reading this book does inspire us to do what we can. So, I just want to make sure that we're all really clear here that we're talking about these internal changes every bit as much as the external changes, so that, yeah.
Peter Kalmus:
No. Yeah. Thank you so much for that. And so, I started my meditation practice, so I do a meditation practice called Vipassana. It's the one where you go on the 10-day silent retreat, which is-
Marianne Williamson:
And you're totally quiet and inside you are totally hysterical.
Peter Kalmus:
Yeah, exactly. After you do a few of them, you're on a little bit less of a rollercoaster ride. But man, my first course, yeah, wow. It was the biggest rollercoaster ride of my life, the highs were so high, the lows were so low.
Marianne Williamson:
When you're left all alone with your own mind.
Peter Kalmus:
And you're just riding that rollercoaster for dear life. But then as you start to develop that muscle of equanimity, which is to be objective about pleasant sensations and painful sensations and to learn to not prefer one over the other, then it starts to really calm down a lot. And that's just, that's such a shield. So, I mean maybe now we should jump to my latest experiment in social change, which was the civil disobedience.
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah. The international scientists and civil disobedience.
Peter Kalmus:
Yeah. We could come back.
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah. Give us a little bit of the hardcore what has to happen by when in terms of the externalities. And give me a real quick 30-second, what has to happen by when in order to save the planet?
Peter Kalmus:
Yeah, so I push back against the sort of deadline approach, okay? So, we're at 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-global mean above pre-industrial, so that probably is not that meaningful to people. But that's just think of that as the baseline where we at, at now. The fires, the floods, the heat waves that we're experiencing now, which the globe will start to manifest as crop failures, multiple crop failures, et cetera. So, I think a lot of the food inflation could be somewhat already connected. We're already seeing famines crop up in parts of the global south.
So, 1.2 degrees Celsius where we're at now, to me, it's clearly not a safe level. The coral reefs are dying. That's one of the things that I study. The rainforest are dying. The Sierra Nevada forest that I love in the California mountains, they are dying right now. So, we took a backpacking trip last summer for five days on the John Muir Trail. A few summers before that, we did almost all of the John Muir Trail. And in just those few years, there were dead trees that had died from one trip to the other. And I just couldn't, the whole time we were walking for five days, just walking through this forest with brown trees everywhere. And all along the Pacific, that people didn't seem to even notice, but I was just like grieving. So, anyway, so this is where we're at now, 1.2 degree Celsius. I don't think it's safe. Most affected peoples, especially in the global south, they've already been dying from this. They're on the front lines. It's certainly not safe for them. So, it's not too late to stop. We can still save everything we can. But every fraction of a degree that it gets hotter will bring more impacts, will bring more death, will bring more suffering, will bring more loss of ecosystem, which is all irreversible essentially. We can talk a little bit about that. We're increasing at about 1/10th of a degree every five years, so 2/10 of a degree in 10 years. We're still on track basically to break 1.5 degrees Celsius in the early 20, 30 timeframe. This has often been said to be a "safe level of global heating." I push back against that, because again, I don't think we're safe at 1.2 degrees, but I think 1.5 degrees is going to be even worse than is currently thought and even worse than what is scientifically projected because the projections have been uniformly kind of under-representing the impacts. So, the heat dome event in the Pacific Northwest that took the whole climate science community by surprise. So, a lot of us are feeling that we're already at a level of earth breakdown, which is coming sooner than we expected. So, that's why I think even 1.5 degree Celcius is not going to be safe. You can estimate how much more fossil fuel we can burn and with a certain probability of staying under 1.5 degree Celsius, and that's roughly how much we would burn in about five years if we keep at current rates. But, so what I'm saying is we need to start thinking in terms of emergency mode. Forget about net zero by 2050. I believe we have to go much, much quicker than that. And the bottom line is it's not too late. We can still save a lot on this planet. We've lost a lot and I grieve about that everyday, and I think more people are going to start realizing what we've lost and they will be grieving, too, but we have to fight like hell to save what we can still save. So I-
Marianne Williamson:
Okay.
Peter Kalmus:
Yeah.
Marianne Williamson:
You got together with all these international scientists. I know you want to get there, but I want to make sure we don't lose anybody in the conversation. So, these, what you were just talking about was the emergency measures that we need to take.
Peter Kalmus:
Switching into...
... emergency mode as a society. Yeah.
Marianne Williamson:
Right. To really move into mass mobilization.
Peter Kalmus:
Exactly.
Marianne Williamson:
Much like during World War II.
Peter Kalmus:
Exactly. A completely different way to come out of incrementalism, come out of these far future or deadlines and go into, "All right. This is life or death. What can we get rid of in 2023 to reduce emissions by 10%? How are we going to do that? What are we going to do in 2020? What's the roadmap? Right?
Marianne Williamson:
Right. Well, so the problem we have is that America has lost its ability, at least temporarily, to respond to emergencies.
Peter Kalmus:
Yes.
Marianne Williamson:
Pearl Harbor happened. We knew it was an emergency. Roosevelt called for mass mobilization. Congress went along with it. The people of the United States went along with it. Today, there's such a cheapening of language that we call it an emergency if JLo and Ben break up. We need to really recognize the kind of emergency that this is - it's threatening to life on the planet - and then of course, transform our economic and political system, who should be leading the charge to stop obstructing the change.
Peter Kalmus:
Exactly. Well said.
Marianne Williamson:
So, start with this extraordinary effort. Now, were you the one who came up with the idea of this mass show of civil disobedience on the part of climate scientists around the world?
Peter Kalmus:
No, no. I did not start scientist rebellion. I had a similar idea several years ago, but I'll be honest, until pretty recently, I wasn't personally ready to take that level of risk, so-
Marianne Williamson:
Okay. Go back. Talk from the beginning because not everybody has seen the video. Tell us exactly what happened.
Peter Kalmus:
Okay. So, what happened on April 6th, that's two days after the IPCC report comes out. We met at Pershing Square in Los Angeles, which is where we're-
Marianne Williamson:
Tell everybody what the IPCC report is, please.
Peter Kalmus:
So, the Working Group III Report is the report that sort of says how humanity can, what humanity can do to avoid the impacts that the Working Group II Report talked about due to the earth system changes that the Working Report talked about. So, this is the one that's really talking about social justice. It's talking about innovation in the technology sector. It's talking about reducing energy, overall energy use and demand. And then, it has some hokey stuff like carbon capture and storage, which I think has no place. It's purely speculative and that kind of speculation has no place in a scientific report, but we could talk about that. But there's also a lot of good things about it. One of the things that says, kind of the top line thing, is that basically to avoid climate catastrophe and they do phrase it in terms of 2 degrees Celsius of global heating, which I think will be completely catastrophic. But to have a chance of staying under even 2 degrees, we have to have a complete moratorium, a new fossil fuel infrastructure now.
Marianne Williamson:
It's so important that everybody really gets that because this is a change in the conversation. Peter, correct me if I'm wrong, where we have to go into our consciousness is we must stop all fossil fuel extraction now.
Peter Kalmus:
Well, so we have to-
Marianne Williamson:
No?
Peter Kalmus:
What we need to do now is we need to stop all new fossil fuel products.
Marianne Williamson:
All new. Yeah. All right.
Peter Kalmus:
We have to ramp down. We have to ramp down existing stuff as quickly as we can, like I was saying before.
Marianne Williamson:
That's the just transition.
Peter Kalmus:
That's right, yes. And we have to... and this is not some kind of left Utopian thing. This is highly pragmatic. It has to be just inequitable because otherwise the working classes will not come on board. They will fight it. So, this happened in the plan.
Marianne Williamson:
But we'll all suffer for that.
Peter Kalmus:
We thought this happened with yellow jacket protests. It's so clear. If you have a carbon tax, for example, sounds great, Pigovian tax will solve this by making gasoline really expensive and that's all you do, guess who gets squeezed? Guess who can't drive to their jobs.
Marianne Williamson:
Right, of course, of course.
Peter Kalmus:
The working class. And so, what do they do? They start rioting. They start breaking windows. They hate it. They don't want to see this policy. And you suddenly, because the rich, the ultra rich weren't able to throw any bones to the working class, you've delayed climate action by another four years because you have to-
Marianne Williamson:
Right.
Peter Kalmus:
Yeah. And then there's, but one more thing though, too. Another reason it's pragmatic is not only do you have to take care of the working class within your own country, you have to get an international cooperation going. So India, which has done almost nothing to cause this problem, they've got a billion people there that are much poorer than us and we're going to be follow. "We're not going to give you anything, but you have to stop fossil fuels." They react with extreme anger to that, so we need equity and climate justice across international borders as well. It's just pragmatic. It's like yes, it's the right thing to do, but we don't stand a chance of actual climate action unless we do that.
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah, but it's more than this paternalistic, we need to be nice to these people so they don't get angry. I think it's beyond that. It's we have to-
Peter Kalmus:
Absolutely, yeah.
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah. We have to recognize that this is how people make a living. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people make a living at jobs which are at least indirectly associated with the fossil fuel industry.
Peter Kalmus:
Oh, that, yeah, yes. Well, I think that's the least
Marianne Williamson:
There's a moral imperative there.
Peter Kalmus:
That's the easiest thing to take care of, I think because it would be the tiniest little fraction of the cost of the transition to just say like, "Yeah, okay, if you're a worker, not a CEO." I think those guys should be in prison, but if you're a worker in the fossil fuel industry, then yeah, we will guarantee a free training for you into the renewable sector. And we will guarantee you a job that pays at least as well as what you're making in the fossil fuel industry. There's not that many. I mean, so you could do that with just a little bit of money and it would be the right thing to do. And then they would be hopefully on board. I mean, a lot of those jobs-
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah, and also you know what?
Peter Kalmus:
The fossil fuel jobs, coal mining jobs are not good jobs. People die really young in those jobs.
Marianne Williamson:
Well, and also a lot of the transitional jobs, when you say free training, it's the same expertise in manufacturing and engineering and research. A lot of it is, it's like you were talking about being at the jet propulsion lab. I've been up at Livermore where they've said, "Listen, we would love to be doing something with our skill and our expertise other than making nuclear bombs. It's just that this is where the grants come from." So, it's the same, it's just repurposing all the genius and the skill that we have in this country towards life producing rather than death producing results.
Peter Kalmus:
And Marianne, where you brought this conversation makes it so clear that what's really stopping climate action is the elites, the rich, those in power right now. They're not willing to relinquish even 1 cent of their wealth. They still want to build up their wealth. It would be so easy to throw these, to make these policies that protected the working class, that protected fossil fuel workers that in COP26, they weren't even willing. I think the number was $50 million that the Global North wanted to put in a pot to give to the Global South, which is an absolutely insulting number, but they couldn't even scrape that together.
Peter Kalmus:
So, it's this complete unwillingness to recognize that we're all humans on this planet and that it's not lip service anymore whatsoever to say that we're all in this together. I mean, that's the pale blue dot. It's a spaceship. It's this Oasis, this beautiful, but it's a spaceship in this cold dark void and we're all on it together.
Marianne Williamson:
I do want to say a little something about the comment you just made about "rich people." Not every rich person is a greedy bastard. There are a lot of very rich environmentally minded people. And also, as you said yourself, it's not just the rich people that are obstructing the change. It's many of the people who are not rich that to continue to vote for people who are basically whores to the fossil fuel industry. So, it has to do as much with the money in the system, in our political system. I just think it's so important that we not personalize. If we set it up only as rich versus poor, rather than corporatocracy versus the people, then I think we're going to have-
Peter Kalmus:
Well, I do want to push back against that a little bit. I think that every billionaire is a policy failure. It's like those are astronomical -
Marianne Williamson:
If they're flying on their private jets, for sure, right?
Peter Kalmus:
And also I would say that how much money does one person actually need in their accounts? So, there's so many people in this country that can't even afford food. And I don't know. I think that a rich person that really did get sort of what was happening right now on the planet and to the poor people, they would be basically giving it away until they weren't ultra rich anymore.
Marianne Williamson:
But a lot of, I mean, I realize there are a lot of greedy bastards out there, but every time somebody says that about billionaires, I think about Oprah Winfrey and how much good she's done for the world. I'm not trying to, in any way, defend a system where such a massive transfer of wealth has resulted in 735, I think, billionaires in this country. Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to in any way defend that. I'm just trying to keep the conversation, so that it’s about the systems rather than personal demonetization.
Peter Kalmus:
Well, right, so-
Marianne Williamson:
Because that's where we get our sort of civil mentality.
Peter Kalmus:
I would say that this massive wealth inequality that we have right now, which has grown massively just in the last couple years, that is itself a system. So, yeah, I don't, I-
Marianne Williamson:
Okay. I don't disagree about that at all. Absolutely. know?
Peter Kalmus:
Well, it's actually very similar to the flying question. So, you can still fly. I choose not to fly in planes because it feels just too kind of disgusting to me. So, I'm-
Marianne Williamson:
How am I supposed to get to Cleveland tomorrow? How would you have me get to Cleveland tomorrow?
Peter Kalmus:
No. Let me finish. Let me finish.
Marianne Williamson:
Okay.
Peter Kalmus:
So, I personally have chosen not to because it just feels too, I just don't like it. And nothing has come along that has risen to that level that would get me onto a plane like that. I think I would actually probably feel nauseous. But even if you fly on planes, you could still be an advocate for not having an aviation system. You could say like, "All right, so we're in a climate emergency, we need to change systems so that we don't have to fly to places. And partly, we eventually have to ramp down the aviation system entirely." People lived, it was only a few decades ago that we didn't have a commercial aviation system.
Marianne Williamson:
Good point.
Peter Kalmus:
Somehow people did stuff.
Marianne Williamson:
That's a very good point. But I think they're now developing jet biofuel. I mean, isn't that going to happen?
Peter Kalmus:
So, I can say this with quite a bit of authority from having driven a vegetable oil car for a long time and picked up vegetable oil from sushi restaurants and Mexican restaurants. There's just not enough veggie oil. So, you can have a few flights going, but you couldn't have aviation at the scale we have it now on vegetable oil. You just can't. And then, I was using waste vegetable oil. You can't grow biofuels specifically for transportation because we have another problem which is biodiversity loss. So, we've already basically covered the entire planet with agriculture and human settlement, et cetera, so we can't do more of that. We have to actually pull back and let wild places start to recover. So, the two ways we could have commercial aviation potentially. So, one is batteries have to get about 10 times better by that, I mean, they have to have about 10 times as much energy, they have to be 10 times lighter. So, you have to have the same amount of energy, but 1/10th of the mass, so that it can actually go on a plane because planes have to be light so they can fly. So, right now, the batteries are way too heavy for long distance flights. You can have electric powered planes that go for a few hundred miles, but you'd be better off taking the train anyway.
Marianne Williamson:
Okay. So, because I know you want to get to the plan of action-
Peter Kalmus:
Or higher energy might be the way. Yeah.
Marianne Williamson:
Okay. So, before we get to the international climate scientist absolute of civil disobedience that I know you want to talk about and that all of us want to hear about. Since not all of us are going to immediately stop all flying on planes. One of the things about-
Peter Kalmus:
No. I don't want to trick people.
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah, one of the things about the book is that it really does talk about seemingly smaller, but no less important things that all of us can do. There's bicycle riding that we can sort of get, it becomes a lifestyle change. You talk about bicycles, you talk about gardening, you talk about meditation. And one of the things about meditation that's so important is that it creates within us the ability to take on the assault on the nervous system that all this breakdown is causing. Anything else that you want to mention in terms of these personal changes? You talk about going vegetarian even for a month.
Peter Kalmus:
Right. So, yeah. I mean, that's how I ended up becoming vegetarian. I just, I did again, I think about things in terms of experiment. So, I did an experiment being a vegetarian for a month and I liked it better, so I just kept doing it. So again, what I was hoping that doing these things that I like and I do encourage everyone to do these kinds of personal changes. A lot of them are great. Also, by the way, I co-founded a free app called Earth Hero, which can help guide people and as they make some sort of the-
Marianne Williamson:
Okay. Called what?
Peter Kalmus:
Earth Hero.
Marianne Williamson:
Okay. Great. Okay.
Peter Kalmus:
So, it's on the App store and whatever kind of device you have, you can get it. And I do encourage people to make these changes in their lives because they're great. But again, what I've learned by doing that experiment and by going on a bunch of radio shows after my book came out, I was hoping that a large fraction of humans would be like, "Oh, this is great. Of course, we're going to start doing that." And be kind of inspired to make those changes that it could actually be a meaningful sort of chunk out of emissions. And I was just frankly, wrong about that. Maybe a fraction of 1% of people have actually-
Marianne Williamson:
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's like I DM'd you.
Peter Kalmus:
It's an experiment. I've been pushing on it and pushing on it.
Marianne Williamson:
No, no. No. When this climate action occurred and I saw you on Twitter, I was like, "Oh, no, it's not getting any coverages in the corporate media." I think I DM'd you, Peter, Peter, it's having an effect. You never know who's listening.
Peter Kalmus:
On Twitter, sometimes you want to say those things, too, just to try to get more out through social media. You know what I mean?
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah. Maybe.
Peter Kalmus:
So, what you said is true. It wasn't getting covered in the mainstream media. And I do think that's an important thing to say because again, a leverage point, I think trying to fix that corporate climate denial if we could get the mainstream media, to really talk about this the way we're talking about it now, as an actual emergency and we have to transform society. Right now, it's just another story. It's like world on track to become unlivable story, Page 3. That's how the LA Times literally reported it that way on Tuesday, April 5th, the day after the IPCC report came out. So, I do think it's important to hammer on that sort of subtle climate denial in the mainstream media, because it helps. Once the media is really talking about this, the way we're talking about it, the movement, the climate movement, the activism movement can really start to take off. But right now-
Marianne Williamson:
And also, there are more and more articles about how the defense industry and the Pentagon, the carbon emissions that come from that are greater than from anything along with animal agriculture, et cetera.
Peter Kalmus:
Fascinatingly, too, the Pentagon are not climate deniers at all. They know what's going to come and how politically destabilizing it will be.
Marianne Williamson:
That's right.
Peter Kalmus:
And people have tried to use that as a communication wedge to talk to conservatives, but somehow it hasn't worked, but it's really true. The military is anything but climate deniers now. They're more than almost anyone, they realize that this is going to be a huge military and geopolitical threat going forward and they're correct about that.
Marianne Williamson:
So, tell us about the great act of civil disobedience on the part of international climate scientists all over the planet.
Peter Kalmus:
Right. So, this is the latest experiment that I'm trying. And so, I've been thinking about Satyagraha for a really long time. I want to say from the get go that Satyagraha is best paired with something called constructive program. So, you don't want to just be bashing the system as it is, but you also want to are building an alternative and putting a narrative of an alternative out into the world. Right. So that there's something to go towards. But anyway, this civil disobedience is an act of Satyagraha, which is the kind of sort of tip of the spirit for creating social change and-
Marianne Williamson:
And that's everyone, just when he says Satyagraha that is a Gandhian principle of soulful action for the creation of soul force. Gandhi called it soul force for the creation of...
Peter Kalmus:
That's right.
Marianne Williamson:
... of external change. And I think this is such a big deal because so many people who have been involved in spiritual change have remained apolitical because they don't want to enter the toxicity and the corruption of the political system. But remember, we're not here to bring the light to the light. We're here to bring the light to the darkness. You take the light with you through Satyagraha. Okay. Go on.
Peter Kalmus:
Well, yeah. And the thing about my meditation practice, too, is you're absolutely right. So, I've not found anything that kind of assuages me of climate anxiety like meditation can. And so, climate grief is, this will probably surprise a lot of people for me to say this, but climate grief is a good thing. It comes out of a place of love. So, if you see something that's being lost, something that you love like coral reefs or like a forest or your kids' futures in some sense to grieve over that.
Peter Kalmus:
It's for me, at least the way I experience this, this is sharp pain of love of this kind of opening up through my chest, but it's a kind of on a painful sort of level, because it comes, it has an element of attachment to the thing that is in danger of being lost. But it's so motivating. It makes me fight. It only lasts, it doesn't usually last very long, those intense feelings of grief. But there's, they make me want to fight so much harder. Now anxiety, on the other hand, couldn't be more different. Anxiety is this low level thing that makes me feel confused, makes me not able to write. I completely can't write. I can't do scientific research when I'm deep in climate anxiety. But fortunately, the meditation practice, so that anxiety comes a lot from attachment to self. And that's not something that I can really maybe let people understand through words. But when you start to have less of that feeling of self and that attachment to self, which is what the Vipassana practice does. So, let me just say really quickly. This particular practice, the main technique, there's sort of three techniques. So, one is focusing on the breath just to help focus the mind. The primary technique is to scan the body and be aware of bodily sensations, whether they're pleasant, tingling, sensations, or painful sensations, they're all impermanent. They're changing constantly. And you experience that in your own body. You experience that thoughts constantly changing. They arise, they pass away. And that there's nothing really solid to hold onto in this thing called Peter, in this thing called Marianne. It's just this constantly changing mind-matter phenomenon. And once you really start experiencing that, and especially if you can sustain that experience over the course of 10 days, it really starts to change you and just crack you open. Because it's that attachment to self that's where fear of death comes from. That's where fear comes from. That's where sense of competition. That's where a sense of separation from other people comes from. So, when you start to dissolve that, you just, I think our natural state is to be kind of a wash and love and compassion and metta. And that's the third practice is that you give this loving and kindness. You project it to all other beings. You could, and this will get me in trouble, but even beings that aren't on earth. Okay?
Marianne Williamson:
Okay. This is a crowd that you can say that with.
Peter Kalmus:
I was an astrophysicist for a year. I know how many stars there are. I know how many galaxies there are out there, how many planets there are there. I'm quite certain that we're not the only life in this universe. And to me, it's fascinating. It's just such a beautiful thing. When you're giving metta, you can give metta to people, who've irritated. You can give metta to your partner, to your children. You can give metta to trees and to forests and to animals on this planet. You can give metta that goes outside of this planet, just projecting. So, you feel these vibrations that you've been meditating with and that are impermanent. And then, you sort of fill those with this loving and kindness. And then, when you give metta to yourself and what you start, which, which took me many years before I even realized, "Oh, wait, I can give myself love and kindness." I actually, when I first realized that I kind of broke down because I had so much self-hatred. That something really big cracked when I realized that you could give metta to yourself. And that you could be like, "You're not perfect, but you're trying really, really hard to make things better." And anyway, too, when you give metta, you realize that other beings, other humans, maybe other beings are giving metta back to you and they don't even know you. And it's such a beautiful thing to realize that the universe is actually washed in this metta, this loving, kindness, this compassion.
Marianne Williamson:
Well, if you go, if you take it all the way, there really is no separation between you and others. So, what you give to others, you are giving to yourself. I can't stand the fact that Mark Zuckerberg took that word, but you can still use it.
Peter Kalmus:
Oh, yeah. Well, mentally, I think it's with two Ts. It's not exactly-
Marianne Williamson:
But maybe it's good that he is using the word. You see metta every time you open your computer.
Peter Kalmus:
That's true. That is really that actually really annoying. I hadn't really thought about that.
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah. No. But hold on. I want to going to go back a little bit to what you were saying before about the difference between climate despair, climate grief and climate anxiety.
Peter Kalmus:
Yes. Very different things.
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah. Well, this is so important. This is why I've had a conversation for so long with people about the over prescription of antidepressants. Being sad about something is a functional, not a dysfunctional response to something is sad. There's a story about a Buddhist monk who was crying at his master's grave. Somebody said to the Buddhist monk, "Well, I thought you were enlightened. Why are you crying?" And his response was, "I am sad." We've taken this cheap yellow smiley face and thrown it over everything. I've been saying for years, if you're looking at the state of the world today and you are not depressed, what is wrong with you? Numbing everybody out, so that they don't get what an emergency we're in is part of the problem. Carl Jung said, "All neurosis is a substitute for legitimate suffering." And I think that the issue of real climate despair and not only despair about the climate, despair about the constant war machine, despair about the global inequality, economic, and otherwise, is a cause for legitimate suffering, true suffering.
Peter Kalmus:
Yes, and for grief and for
Marianne Williamson:
And as we avoid that, we become caught up in little ultimately unimportant micro pain, micro pains that of course make so many people in the world look at us with rolled eyes.
Peter Kalmus:
So, the earth is suffering right now. And one of the things that kind of I knew maybe more intellectually, and then this action, I really experienced this in a very strong way, is that, I think, probably a lot of climate activists share this experience. But I really feel like kind of a spokesperson for the earth or just part of that group-
Marianne Williamson:
Peter, you are and you're an awfully good one.
Peter Kalmus:
Well, partly, I am the earth and I'm speaking for the earth, so it's not about me. And that takes away the fear, too, to not make it about you, but to just be like, "All right. So, I've been kind of called and it comes from a sense of gratitude. So, we literally owe everything that we have to this planet. It's I'm deeply in love with this planet in a very real sense. When I walk in the mountains and I did that from a young age.
Peter Kalmus:
And there's this moment that I haven't shared very much. When I was building trail in Northern New Mexico with a group of other kind of high school kids. And it was a nighttime and I was in my tent, I had to go pee. It was probably 2:00 AM or something. So, I walked a few hundred yards to the place where we were working on the trail. And I just laid down on this fresh trail with all the smells of earth and the rocks that we've been chipping and looked up at the stars and all the trees around me. And just had this crazy experience of connection. And that was another moment that kind of cracked me open. And I realized ever since then, so from when I was a kid that I'm in love with this planet in a real way. Not just in, that's not like a euphemism or anything, it's real. And I feel so much gratitude for this planet. And so to feel called to stand up for it is it's the greatest honor. And then you have no fear. And I said this during the action, when I was giving my talk, this is so much bigger than any one of us. This is so much bigger than my job at NASA. No, offense NASA. I love you. You're doing great work. I love working for you, but this really is bigger than my job in NASA. This is bigger than whether I go to jail or not. This is bigger than whether people like me or not.
Peter Kalmus:
It's such a, it's an honor to be able to give back in this way to this planet and to this earth and to the life on this earth. So, I just wanted to make that very clear. So for me, this civil disobedience was, and I think this, I've had done a lot of interviews since that moment. And I haven't really gotten a chance to talk about this, about what a spiritual experience it really was for me. How it took several years to basically come up with the courage and to align this with my partner, to get her on board, and then to finally commit to it. And to what an act, to how powerful that moment of like, "Oh, yeah, okay, I'm really going to do this." And then that's when a lot of-
Marianne Williamson:
And now, tell people. Peter, hold on. Tell people exactly what the action was.
Peter Kalmus:
The action was, it was very simple. It was ridiculously simple. We just walked four of us.
Marianne Williamson:
And how many of you were there?
Peter Kalmus:
There were four of us that were risking arrest that day in doing the civil disobedience. Me and-
Marianne Williamson:
But weren't there scientists all over the planet doing this?
Peter Kalmus:
Oh, yes, yeah. This was just in Los Angeles. So, there were about a thousand or so scientists, only a few of whom were climate scientists, but there are a lot of scientists around the world, especially in Europe. There's a few in the Global South that did other actions in other cities on the same day in response to the IPCC report. And by the way, as I started saying earlier that I had been thinking about civil disobedience and scientists doing civil disobedience for a few years, but I hadn't been personally ready to take that risk myself, which meant that there was no way I could organize other scientists to do it. There was no way I could write about it in a book if I hadn't done it yet. So, the moment I committed, to actually really doing it. That was the moment when I could start, actually making it happen and organizing and sort of building these relationships to make it happen. And a few days or a few weeks before the action, before April 6th, I actually went and served on a 10-day meditation course, which was the best thing I could have possibly. So, I tried to go either sit or serve. Serving just means you're cooking the food and washing the dishes and supporting the people meditating. And you meditate, too. You meditate three or four hours a day as a server. When you're sitting the course, you meditate 13 hours a day. It's basically we just, you eat, you meditate, you sleep when you're sitting in the course, so you go very deep. When you're serving the course, you're in this kind of rarefied environment of meditation, but you're still interacting with other servers. So, egos can come up like, "Oh, how come they didn't ask me to cook that meal? I know how to cook." But it's so great, it's such a great practice, because you catch yourself. You're like, "Oh, there's my ego. Hello." It comes up in the silliest ways and you learn to laugh at it because it's so ridiculously over the top what our egos make it do. But anyway, so I did that. That was the best possible preparation for me than to actually partake in this action. We walked up to the bank. We locked the front doors. There are many other ways for people to get in and out of the bank, so it was a largely symbolic action. Then we locked our wrists with chains and padlocks to the door handles and we waited.
Marianne Williamson:
And tell me why. Wait a minute. Why banks? Why these banks? What is their connection to fossil fuel, et cetera?
Peter Kalmus:
Thank you. So, we chose JP Morgan Chase Bank because out of all the banks of the world, it does the most to fund new fossil fuel infrastructure projects. And like I said before, we can't do any more new fossil fuel now. We have to ramp down what's already existing. A new power plant, a new gas or coal plant, a new pipeline, those things to have an average lifetime of 40 years. We can't, we've got to get off of fossil fuels in a few years. We can't afford to still to build new stuff now that has a 40-year. And United Nations General Secretary, Secretary General, António Guterres said that to expand fossil fuel infrastructure now is both morally, and it's moral and economic madness. That is the word that he used and he's absolutely-
Marianne Williamson:
He says wonderful things. He must be so depressed. I mean, to be Secretary General of the United Nations to know what's correct, to say what's correct. And to see how much economic and social and political resistance, institutional resistance there is. He's the man that they say-
Peter Kalmus:
Marianne, he took the gloves off. Yeah. And the fact that-
Marianne Williamson:
He did. He's saying the right stuff.
Peter Kalmus:
Yeah, on April 4th. Another thing that he said, which I used as that, what is it? The epitaph is that the quote that's at the top of a chapter or a piece. But anyway, the thing is-
Marianne Williamson:
The epitaph is at the end, right?
Peter Kalmus:
Epigraph, epitaph, I don't remember.
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah, whatever.
Peter Kalmus:
I started an Op-Ed in The Guardian.
Marianne Williamson:
We're supposed to know these things, you know?
Peter Kalmus:
Yeah. So, I talked to my editor at The Guardian and I said, "I want to write a piece about this action that I'm going to do in a few days. Would you publish it? Would you let it come out online moment that we because I didn't want to give the details and clue in the cops as to where we were doing it. And so, I started that piece. It's basically a piece about 800 words about why I was doing this because of how that's [crosstalk]
Marianne Williamson:
Well, I have the article here. Hold on a moment with-
Peter Kalmus:
Yeah, because of my love for my kids really, I'm not an actor. I'm not really not joking about any of this. I'm really, I'm a parent. I would give my life without hesitation for my kids. The least I could do is lock my wrists to the door handle of JP Morgan Chase. So, you think about it that way, it's not really that scary anymore to do this. But yeah, the starting quote from António Guterres, do you want to read it? Do you have the article?
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah, yeah. That's what I want to do. He said, this is the Secretary General of the United Nations, everyone, António Guterres. He says, "Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals, but the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels."
Peter Kalmus:
It's like music to my ears.
Marianne Williamson:
And the link to that article is in the chat.
Peter Kalmus:
So, what a way for me to start an action of civil disobedience, where I was taking personal risk. What a way for me to start an Op-Ed a, about that action. To me, he just hit it out of the park.
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah. He's a hero. He's a climate hero.
Peter Kalmus:
Yeah, absolutely. I feel like he might be ready to engage in civil disobedience pretty soon, too, I mean.
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah. He's the dog hammer should of his generation. Yeah.
Peter Kalmus:
Yeah. How powerful would that be for him to get arrested for climate disobedience.
Marianne Williamson:
So, in Los Angeles, we all saw the pictures on social media. You were at chaining yourself to the doors of JP Morgan and the LAPD sent a SWAT team out.
Peter Kalmus:
It was crazy.
Marianne Williamson:
Protect America from these four climate scientists, right?
Peter Kalmus:
Yeah. I mean, boy, what a narrative they gave us. So, I guess I have to thank them for that.
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah. It sets an embodiment of how the system is.
Peter Kalmus:
Yes, yeah. And then, I just sat there and for three hours, it took three, three and a half hours before they finally arrested us. So, I gave a few speeches, but most of the time, I was really just sitting there meditating and giving metta to the police, metta to the police. And just sort of smiling at them because like we were talking about before with the flying and with the rich people, it is the whole system that has to change. And a lot of us are caught up in this system and frankly, we're caught up in this ignorance. And the system has its own logic. And the social norms from that system are they're as strong as steel bars and steel barriers. They're very real these social norms. And so, because of our ignorance, we fall into these channels of these social norms that we can't even see. And that maybe we're not even aware of, but they're very, very real. And so, the civil disobedience is bending those bars and pushing against those norms.
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah. That's exactly right.
Peter Kalmus:
That was the experiment that I wanted to try. And for the first time, it was so successful. So, our hypothesis was that climate scientists engaging in this kind of civil disobedience would be a kind of communication, like almost a brain-to-brain connection to people, right? And cut through all of the noise and all the bullshit. And it did that and it inspired. I've gotten so many messages, especially from young people that were, they feel hopeful now for the first time. Because hope doesn't come from people doing positive message. Hope comes from seeing people take risks and do real actions. And real hope will come once these world governments start actually taking meaningful action. Which means, like I said before, a roadmap, a plan to very rapidly in an emergency mode scale down fossil fuels and also things like that. Animal, agriculture industry, too, which 15% of the climate crisis from that. So, 80% from fossil fuel industry. And then we have to take another step. This is like this is rabbit holes within rabbit holes, which is why it's been such a nonlinear conversation. But we also have to start talking about extractive colonialist capitalism as well, which is another system that would happen.
Marianne Williamson:
Oh, that.
Peter Kalmus:
Right. So, to go back to rich people and how at some level they're trapped in the system as well.
Marianne Williamson:
There is that.
Peter Kalmus:
So, we have an economic system which is designed to accrue capital. That's why it's called capitalism. Its main goal is to create profit for people that enclosed capital, that control capital. We could have an economic system had a different goal. So, changing the goal system is the most powerful leverage point for changing a system. Donella Meadows had this amazing essay that everyone should read.
Marianne Williamson:
Who does?
Peter Kalmus:
Donella Meadows, Donella Meadows.
Marianne Williamson:
Donella Meadows.
Peter Kalmus:
She was one of the authors. Yeah. So, she had this amazing essay called Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in the System. And the most important one is changing the goal of this system, changing the paradigm. And so, we could have an economic system-
Marianne Williamson:
The whole idea of pro-growth, it should be internal growth.
Peter Kalmus:
It should be internal growth and growth of capital and economic growth is exponential growth. That should no longer be the goal. The goal should be changed to human flourishing and to living and balance with the web of life and to flourishing of all life on earth. That's all, that's the main change that we have to make and people-
Marianne Williamson:
What we have to do?
Peter Kalmus:
Once you change that goal, hundreds of policies would come that would start. Right now, all of the policies align towards accruing capital, the legal system, the advertising system. We could change all of that to align with human flourishing, justice for all equitable, everyone flourishing on this planet with the rest of life on earth. That should be the goal.
Marianne Williamson:
I know.
Peter Kalmus:
And then all the policies would follow from that.
Marianne Williamson:
And it's all a change in purpose.
Peter Kalmus:
It's a change in purpose.
Marianne Williamson:
When you talk about from a war economy to a peace economy, from a dirty economy to a clean economy, it's changing the purpose. Really recognizing what is the purpose of our lives and that is to expand human flourishing and radical humanitarianism. We should have a humanitarian rather than an economic bottom line.
Peter Kalmus:
As a physicist, there's nothing, there's no physical law that says we couldn't do this.
Marianne Williamson:
That's right.
Peter Kalmus:
It's like what's so wrong with peace, love and understanding, like Elvis Costello says.
Marianne Williamson:
And also-
Peter Kalmus:
We could do it. We just have to do it.
Marianne Williamson:
Also, when people say we're naive, what's naive is to think we can continue on this planet for another a hundred years the way we're doing things now. When all these people who represent systems who have taken us to the brink of disaster, environmentally as a democracy, economically. We're 6 inches from the cliff and they purport to be the ones who are qualified to lead us out of the ditch that they took us into. So, along with everything else, there's this radical reappraisal of what it means to be qualified, to rethink, to re-articulate and to lead the world to.
Peter Kalmus:
That's right.
Marianne Williamson:
You know what, Peter?
Peter Kalmus:
And what it means to be human, too, on this planet. Earth breakdown-
Marianne Williamson:
Hold that.
Peter Kalmus:
Earth breakdown is a wake up call. It's the earth saying, "All right, you guys did this thing, experimented with this crazy sort of violent society. Now, let's talk. Come back into the embrace of Mother Nature." And it would be such a beautiful thing if we could do that. I think we can.
Marianne Williamson:
I see. I know we can, but we have to do it quickly. And as you said earlier in this hour...
Peter Kalmus:
We do and we have to fight.
Marianne Williamson:
... enough with the incremental. Enough of the incrementalism. We do not have time to take these baby steps. We have to look at this situation with the urgency that really challenges us. Now, I know you have a hard out, so I want to give people an opportunity to ask questions if I may. Is that okay with you, Peter?
Peter Kalmus:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
Marianne Williamson:
Okay. Put your hands up if you want to ask Peter a question. I'm going to begin with Robin. Robin I see that you have a question. Go for it.
Robin:
Hello. Hello. Thank you very much. I really zeroed in on when you said, "You think you might tell people to do X, Y, Z to help the planet and it's just a really difficult thing for them." And I've had a lot of experience with that. And I just put the link to an article I wrote about it in the chat. For three years, I'm trying to get people to realize to just turn off their engines when they're parked. Just turn off their engines when they're parked. And in California, I'm in Los Angeles, a big car, state and the big car city. And it's taken me three years. I did get the city council to start to work towards an educational campaign, but this is such, I'm just saying, this is such an obvious thing. My article is subtitled, The Power Of The Overlooked Obvious. And I want to also that, before we address any of that, I want to mention another overlooked obvious that I hear very little about, nuclear plants are still being built and plans for them around the world. And it's very, very dangerous. It's a very bad use of our energy and resources. Uranium mining is so dangerous. Who wants to live near the waist dumps. It's a terrorist threat, especially with increasingly severe weather. And yet, we hardly hear any discussion about that. So, there's a few things that I just want to say, we're just not paying attention to. And I remember Marianne said about the boxes in the corner of the room and you just start ignoring them, instead of putting away the stuff. There are so many little things like that are happening now that we are just ignoring. And even if you bring it up, it just kind of dissipates in people's minds or consciousness.
Peter Kalmus:
Well, thanks-
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah, thank you.
Peter Kalmus:
Go ahead, Marianne.
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah, Peter, I'm really glad Robin brought up the topic of nuclear power because I want to ask you. I'm so glad you did that, Robin. Thank you. What are your thoughts? A lot of people say, "Well, if we're going to make this just transition. We're going to have to have these nuclear power plants." Please tell us your thoughts.
Peter Kalmus:
I don't think we necessarily need nuclear, but I'm not against it either. So, that, Robin you'll probably not be happy with that answer. But it's actually, so my main problem with nuclear power is that it's been historically very hard to have civil nuclear power without also having nuclear weapons. And I'm very against nuclear weapons, but the nuclear waste problem itself and deaths from nuclear plants themselves are that in my opinion is overblown.
Peter Kalmus:
So, the uranium mining is a problem, but when you weigh against earth breakdown, which is mainly driven by climate change by global heating right now, it's not nearly in the same scale as the danger that we're in from actual fossil fuels. So, I'm against shutting down existing nuclear plants, because right now you would replace those with fossil fuels because we're building out renewables, sort of as fast as we can. But we, yeah, anyway, that's my. So, I know that's controversial, but that's my-
Marianne Williamson:
No, but It's a good conversation. It's good that we're having the conversation. And thank you, Robin, because I think we all hear you both.
Peter Kalmus:
I want to respond to the first part of Robin's question.
Marianne Williamson:
Okay. And then I want to go back, because I know other people have their hand raised
Peter Kalmus:
Right. I know and I'll try to be fast. But I think the illustration of how you can't even get people to turn off their cars when they're idling, which would be 0.0002% of solving climate change anyway and yet, you can't even. And it's painless for them to save the money. You can't even get them to do that. I think that illustrates my point that we have to speak out and do things like civil disobedience and get into good trouble in order to cause the system to change and then they won't even have engines that are idling. So, the most people, I don't think we're going to solve this problem fast enough by appealing to people's better natures and getting them to voluntarily make these changes, especially when corporations, the fossil fuel industry, the politicians that they own, they do everything possible to make systems that force people to act in these ways because it's profitable to them. So, that's why I really think that again in 2010, I was doing this experiment. I'm like, "Well, maybe if I joyfully reduce my emissions, so many people will be inspired by that. It will make an impact." And I'm telling you just straight up, I did that experiment. The results came in. I was wrong. That is not the quickest path to social change. I did the experiment of civil disobedience. A very simple thing of locking my wrists to a door handle for a couple of hours and it had an incredible impact around the world. It went viral. It gave people hope. It sort of gave the old scientist rebellion, not just me, gave sort of new life to the climate movement, I think.
Marianne Williamson:
Well, the-
Peter Kalmus:
So, those two experiments, very different results.
Marianne Williamson:
The word you used earlier than I've been thinking about and talking and writing about a lot is courage. We have the data and now, we all have to ask ourselves whether or not we have the courage to really step out of our comfort zones enough...
Peter Kalmus:
Yes. Thank you for that.
Marianne Williamson:
... to take the next step.
Peter Kalmus:
That's absolutely right. People ask me, "How can I be a climate activist?" I get that question all the time, so probably people in this chat were thinking that question. And I used to give a series of guidelines like, "Join a group, talk about it a lot. You'll get really creative. Use your network." All that stuff, which is good advice, but the truth is you have to figure that out yourself. It is sort of a spiritual thing. The whole point of being an activist is that you're pushing the movement. You're not getting pulled by the movement. You're actually thinking of it yourself like, "Where can I contribute?" And figuring that out. And one of the critical things there is to actually take risks. So, to push against those bars of those social norms, you can't push against those since we're such deeply social creatures without getting those butterflies in your stomach. So, if you're not taking some risks, then you're not actually pushing against those social systems. So, to be an activist it means figuring out kind of coming up with your own way of doing that, being creative and then taking risks.
Marianne Williamson:
And don't expect to be popular.
Peter Kalmus:
Yeah. Don't expect to be more than-
Marianne Williamson:
You'll be popular with people you respect, oh, boy, I might come after that.
Peter Kalmus:
That's right.
Marianne Williamson:
I know a little about that.
Peter Kalmus:
That's true.
Marianne Williamson:
Okay, Joan Halgren, I think your hand is up.
Joan Halgren:
I thank you all for this great moment, which we all really need to be talking about. I'm wondering two things. One on Biden's recent decision to release the leases on federal land. What is your, and his explanation of why. I just wondered if you're buying it. Number one. And then number two, Climate Change Envoy John Kerry doesn't seem to be having a really successful time. I'm wondering what you think of his position.
Marianne Williamson:
Great question.
Peter Kalmus:
Yeah, so the first one I am so against any expansion of fossil fuels at this point. I think the Biden administration should be using the bully pulpit to sell a transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewables. It would create so many jobs. It would give clean air to people. You have to do it like I said many, many times in a way that's just, and that make sure that working class and most effective peoples are not... I think Biden, he's currently using the bully pulpit to sell fossil fuel expansion, which is so backwards. So, I know he's got a lot of political forces. It's very hard to tattle moratorium, but the first step to use the bully pulpit to sell this to the American people. It should be an easy sell and he's not doing it. So, that makes me think really, I don't think he understands how serious this is. I don't.
Peter Kalmus:
He kept saying over and over again that he listens to the scientists. I'm not buying that he's listening to the scientists because I've never once felt he truly understands what a catastrophe we're heading towards and what this is going to mean for our kids. Young people are freaking out about this and rightfully so. And again, positive messaging is not going to, help them with their climate depression. They might start having suicidal thoughts about because of earth breakdown.
Peter Kalmus:
What's going to help them is if the government actually starts selling this transition to the people. He should be doing a full scale education campaign with billboards, with TV ads, the best people in the PR business, the best people in the advertising business put that machine, which is currently destroying the planet into service to selling this transition to American people.
Marianne Williamson:
Well, those people are-
Peter Kalmus:
So, that you actually build political feasibility. I mean, come on, it's not rocket science.
Marianne Williamson:
Those PR firms are looking...
Peter Kalmus:
I'm so mad at this.
Marianne Williamson:
... for the American Petroleum Institute and so forth.
Peter Kalmus:
Right. Yeah.
Marianne Williamson:
I couldn't agree with you more. So, what about real quickly before we go to the next question, what about Joan's question about John Kerry?
Peter Kalmus:
So, I'm not really sure. I haven't been following that closely what John Kerry's doing, but I get the same sense from him that I don't think he talks about it or thinks about it the same way I do. I've transformed my whole life, my career, for going from astrophysics. I used to love playing music. I gave that up when I switched into earth science, because I just didn't have time. It was so demanding to make that scientific transition and then to be an activist, having a second full-time job. Chaining myself to banks and risking arrests. I mean, that's I think an envoy for climate change to the world. It should really be that level of passion and that level of commitment. And I think he's still flying around in private jets. I know, yeah, okay, maybe he has no. But really that's a reflection of the mentality, which is, I think the problem, which is kind of manifesting this in action throughout the world.
Marianne Williamson:
So, just-
Joan Halgren:
Yeah. I've heard that he may be resigning.
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah.
Peter Kalmus:
I can't speak to that.
Joan Halgren:
After November.
Peter Kalmus:
Yeah, I can't speak to that.
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah. I have a little bit of anecdotal gossip level information there. And I have heard that he's one of the people within the administration, who's finding it very...
Peter Kalmus:
Gina McCarthy as well.
Marianne Williamson:
... painful.
Peter Kalmus:
There's some rumors. I heard her on-
Marianne Williamson:
What's Deb Holland thinking? I mean, here we have this native American woman who was the Interior Secretary.
Peter Kalmus:
I don't know.
Marianne Williamson:
And drilling on public land.
Peter Kalmus:
I think there's a lot of rationalization going on that least they have a seat at the table. Those that could make some difference. I honestly think they might make more difference by just quitting in disgust because that would be [crosstalk 01:07:06].
Marianne Williamson:
No. Yeah, performative. Yes, I agree with you. Why didn't you resign that day? It's all performative of how dare you use me?
Peter Kalmus:
Right. And they do that.
Marianne Williamson:
My native heritage to sell this crap.
Peter Kalmus:
If they did quit in disgust, they would get such a huge platform that they could use that to push from the outside.
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah, I agree with you. When I heard her say the other day about the oil drilling that the taxpayer deserves a return on their investment.
Peter Kalmus:
Oh, my God.
Marianne Williamson:
I thought, "Is this a democratic administration? What is going on?"
Peter Kalmus:
It really is like Don't Look Up. I mean, that movie, is...
Marianne Williamson:
It is. It is.
Peter Kalmus:
... hitting the nail on the head.
Marianne Williamson:
And you're right, if she quit, think of what a platform she'd have.
Peter Kalmus:
Exactly.
Marianne Williamson:
I know you have a hard out. I have to respect that and I want to get to people. So, Matthew.
Peter Kalmus:
A few more.
Marianne Williamson:
Okay.
Matthew Moore:
Hi, that's great conversation. Thanks.
Peter Kalmus:
Thank you.
Matthew Moore:
I'm curious, if you know what the science says or if you have any thoughts about people like Paul Hawkins’ work spotlighting all the creative ideas related to draw down of carbon and regeneration.
Peter Kalmus:
The thing that excited me the most about draw down is that the number one solution is empowering women around the world. I thought that was so amazing and so powerful. And there's so many good reasons for that and there's so much research that looks at it. It's just like a win, win, win for everyone. So, that, I hadn't really thought about that before I read draw down and I was blown away by that. And we should be talking...
Marianne Williamson:
That's also-
Peter Kalmus:
... about that more, yeah.
Marianne Williamson:
Well, that's also the number one factor in creating a more peaceful world is greater and more economic opportunities for which to come.
Peter Kalmus:
Go ahead, Matthew.
Marianne Williamson:
Matthew, you want to say?
Matthew :
Well, I'm reading this new book Regeneration and he's talking about growing a kelp forest in the ocean to pull down carbon growing like ferns and just all these kind of things. I'm not, you know?
Peter Kalmus:
No. I'm not a fan of that kind of stuff at all. It's just a distraction. We have to go straight to the cause, which is the fossil fuel industry, 80%, 15%, the animal agriculture industry. That's like all of this stuff, carbon capture, geoengineering, planting trees. You can't plant trees in a place that's too freaking hot and dry for trees anymore. It's a non solution. It's a distraction from the real solutions, so stop dancing around the issue. We need a roadmap year by year. What are we going to change? How are we going to? And-
Marianne Williamson:
It's called the Green New Deal.
Peter Kalmus:
Yes. And again, I know you're sensitive about hammering on the rich people, but they really-
Marianne Williamson:
No, no, I don't.
Peter Kalmus:
The lions share of emission on our planet. What's the statistic like, 1% of humans emit 50%. I don't remember the exact numbers. I know 1% of humans are responsible for 50% of aviation emissions. It's probably roughly the same for overall emissions. So, we do have to have this discussion about how to. There's a lot of low-hanging fruit there because the richest people use so much energy. So, we have to have a plan. 2023, how are we going to get that 10% reduction? 2024, what are we going to do to get that 10% reduction? We have to constantly revisit that.
Peter Kalmus:
Meanwhile, the hardest 10% or 20% that's going to come later after several years. While we're doing the low hanging fruit, we can be developing technology in ways. It's like when you go for a hike and you're climbing up to the top of a mountain, you can't see the mountain peak, but you have to start climbing and you'll get to the first false peak, you'll learn more, you'll learn more. We can't see how to get all the way to 100% ending fossil industry, but we know the first 80% what to do. And as we start doing it, we'll learn the last 20%, but we're not doing that now. And I'm really, I'll be honest. I was a pretty big, got this little bobble head. I was a pretty big Bernie supporter. I was actually a surrogate. His climate plan was so good. I spoke to him in person. He really understood what was at stake. Whereas Biden's plan was you got an F or a D or something from the Sunrise Movement. Very, very appropriately, in my opinion. He had longstanding ties to the fossil industry. I saw the moment that the democratic moderates coalesced around Biden and ended Bernie's chances and Elizabeth Warren stayed silent. That was really the moment where I'm like, "I'm not sure that we can do this with electoral politics anymore," because I really felt like Biden was going to be not great for climate change.
Marianne Williamson:
Well, I happen to know that there was one presidential candidate who when she left, did endorse Bernie. We need to develop a different-
Peter Kalmus:
Thank you.
Marianne Williamson:
Thank you. We need to develop a different political constituency. Everyone, please go to candidatesummit.com. Right now, these primaries are being played out right now. The progressives versus the corporate moderates. They're not even moderate, like Guterres said, they are actually the radicals.
Peter Kalmus:
They are the radicals. What they're doing is [crosstalk 01:11:44].
Marianne Williamson:
Nina Turner is a gift to all. Please check out candidatesummit.com.
Peter Kalmus:
I actually get to talk to Nina-
Marianne Williamson:
Because we can't live electoral politics out of this either. What did you just say, Peter?
Peter Kalmus:
I actually get to talk with Nina in 15 minutes. I'm really excited.
Marianne Williamson:
Oh, good, good. And tell her, I will see her tomorrow morning.
Peter Kalmus:
All right. I'll tell her you said hi.
Marianne Williamson:
Yeah, I'm flying to Cleveland. Okay. I'm going to call her at 9:00 and say, "Peter says I can't go." I mean, [crosstalk 01:12:05].
Peter Kalmus:
Maybe you could do it by Zoom. I don't know.
Marianne Williamson:
No, I'm going to do a whole... anyway.
Peter Kalmus:
It's a long conversation. It took me two years to ramp down my flying by the way. That's crazy.
Marianne Williamson:
Right. And what I really love about the book, which really I wanted to say everybody at the end anyway is, one of the things Peter talks about is just do something.
Peter Kalmus:
Yeah, something.
Marianne Williamson:
That's really the core in the book. Just do something, the little things that we can do. And I've seen that in terms of changes in my life in a lot of areas. Today, Marianne, just do something. Okay. Real quickly, Wendy.
Wendy:
Hi. Thank you for letting me talk. I'm a wildlife biologist. I've been working on these issues since 1979.
Peter Kalmus:
Wow.
Wendy:
And in some cases, Peter, I have a little bit of a disagreement with you about agriculture in general because fossil fuels are a big component in a fertilizer. Not just that we're using fossil fuels and it's, all this nitrogen contained water systems and stuff. It's actually destroying the soil, literally destroying the soil, the ability to hold moisture and carbon. And so, when people are thinking about take action, again, is another expensive thing is that we really ought to think about changing our food system in total.
Wendy:
And it's not that animal agriculture is always bad. There can be ways of doing it well. And it suggests everybody watch that little film, The Biggest Little Farm documentary. It's made me feel hopeful. I can't tell the times myself, colleagues have been under gag orders, both for State and Federal government, which I've worked for. And so people, the public thinks they're getting the best information from the government. They're not. I get that. Really, people just have to decide with sword. They're going to fall on when they're-
Marianne Williamson:
Forgive me. We have to wrap this up because I feel I owe it to Peter. He's in such demand tonight and for all the good reasons. And for that-
Peter Kalmus:
If I could respond though.
Marianne Williamson:
Yes, please.
Peter Kalmus:
If I could take one minute to respond, I just want to say that I agree strongly with Wendy. I should have said animal agriculture is that's currently practiced, but also I think overall on the planet, we just do have to eat a lot less meat. That's pretty clear to me because again like E.O. Wilson came up with this idea of half earth, which I actually agree with. I think we need to leave more of the planet than we're currently allowing for wild places. And a big part of that would be to go towards a more plant-based diet. There are places, especially indigenous peoples in every kind of marginal lands where you can't grow plants. You have to, the only way you can survive is through pastoralism. So, there are definitely exceptions to that. But I think that, especially the beef industry, that's probably something. I used to keep chickens, I don't anymore. So, I know a lot of-
Marianne Williamson:
Oh, I know once you read Michael Pollan, that's over.
Peter Kalmus:
Yeah.
Marianne Williamson:
And shout out-
Peter Kalmus:
Anyway, so yeah, there's a lot of wisdom to what you say. It's fascinating to think that because of the Haber process of nitrogen fixation, our bodies are basically, all the nitrogen in our bodies comes from essentially, natural gas in the fixing of nitrogen from the air. So, it's a pretty weird situation and yeah, we have to completely rethink the food system. That's going to be in the harder part, maybe that's in that 20% of the kind of harder stuff, but we got to get started thinking about that now. You're absolutely right.
Peter Kalmus:
So yeah, thank you so much. I should probably go, but-
Marianne Williamson:
Okay, everybody, Peter Kalmus, we all think the world of you. I know that I am speaking, not only for the people on this call, but to all the people who will be watching this. You please continue being you, doing you. Never doubt the effect that you are having. Never doubt it. Not only with your actions such as the civil disobedience, but with every word you say at this point and particularly in this community. Thank you for bringing in the holistic integrative nature, personal change as well as external change.
Peter Kalmus:
Thank you.
Marianne Williamson:
I know that I speak for everybody...
Peter Kalmus:
Thank you so much, Marianne.
Marianne Williamson:
... we love you.
Peter Kalmus:
Thank you for having me on, too. You're a fantastic interviewer and that was a lot of fun, so thank you so much.
Marianne Williamson:
Thank you. God bless you, darling. Okay, everybody. Thank you so much. All my best to you. Have a beautiful, beautiful night. Thank you everybody and happy Earth Day. Let's hope that one year from now, we all feel much more hopeful that the consciousness of the planet and the activism of the planet has increased to such an extent that we really do feel that we are at the beginning stage of the regenerative era, by which we will save the planet, save the species and save the world.
Marianne Williamson:
God bless you everybody. Thanks so much.
Share this post