And we are live, Tad. Great to see you, buddy. Yeah, so for those who don't know, Tad are great. Hopefully you all know by this point because Tad and I have collaborated together for years. Good friends and I learned a lot from Tad. And we're gonna talk today about a topic that, yeah, I don't feel like I talk about it often enough but I think it's really important. Those of you watching this who are solopreneurs, service providers, even freelancers, we're gonna talk about business models because if you don't got one, you don't really have a financially viable business. And you might have noticed that. And if you do have a good one, then business is just easier. Having a stable income is just easier. So, Tad, I'm gonna interview you about this and we only have like 20-ish minutes. So, yeah, you're gonna have to tell us everything that you know in 20 minutes. And while you still give us a understandable pace, you know. So, but later, Tad has a webinar coming up about business models and an entire three-month sort of like a more well-paced community experience to work on business models. We can touch on that later, but at least in this, the next 20 minutes, I'm gonna see what Tad can give us at least an overview and some of the key points to think about. So, Tad, anything, by the way, anything you wanna say about yourself in terms of introduction, background? So, yeah, I run marketingforhippies.com. I've been doing this for about 20 years or so, a little more than 20 years.  And this is the first time in my membership, I'm actually talking about business model in a formal, structured way. Yeah, it's awesome. I think it's so important. I'm glad you're bringing it up. So, first of all, you and I probably agree on what a business model is, but I bet a lot of people watching, they're like, what's a business model? Why do I need one? So, let's start with the basics of what is it? Why do we need one? What's interesting when you were saying this at the beginning, the thing I wanted to respond is it's similar to niche. People will say, well, do I need to niche? It's like, oh, so you think you don't have one already? I look at niche as just what do you want to be known for? And so the idea that we're not already known for something by the people who know us, it's just not true. Of course, people know us for something. It just may not be the thing we want to be known for. That reputation may not be getting us the kind of clients that we want. So I think there's a similar thing with business model. It's not that you either have a business model or you don't, it's just that it's either working for you or it isn't. And so I suppose business model is like the structure of your business, the architecture of the lattice work, the framework, the kind of blueprint your business has been built on. And so is it a lean to, is it a one room cabin? Is it a mansion? Is it somewhere in between? Because if it's too big and too crazy, it's impossible to keep it up, potentially. And if it's too small, it just may not sustain you. If you're having a little tent and winter comes around, well, then you may die, you may freeze and die. And this happens in business all the time. So I think there's two things about business model. One is the size of it. Sometimes it's like a bucket, and you need to bring water to your family. But if you're trying to feed a family and it takes a couple of hours to go down to the river and get water, and this is what you're using, it's fine. It's just not enough. And then the other trouble is you get a leaky bucket. You know, the bucket doesn't work. And by the time you get home, it's all gone or most of it's gone. And so some business models are like that, they're big enough, but they don't work. Yeah. I love the metaphor you're bringing in. The tent and the winter, that's a really good one. It's so true. And also the mansion, a castle, sounds great. Like who wouldn't want a castle, right? Well, the upkeep will keep you, it's like 12 full-time jobs, just to keep it going, keep it clean or whatever. The heating bills, you know. The heating bills, right, all that. So let's just get really practical on someone who's going, I'm still not quite sure what you mean by business model. I'm gonna say something and it's gonna be really basic but I want you to fill this out. So many of you watching basically have, I have one-on-one service. People can hire me as a one-to-one life coach. I sell sessions. And then I got real sophisticated, you know, a while ago and I'm selling packages now. That's a business model. That's what we're talking about. You've got a really simple business model.  And then they can also buy packages from you. Package of three sessions, package of nine sessions or whatever it may be. Ted, is that fair to call that a business model? Is that basic? And what else might you say about that? Yeah, I mean, I like the way Mark Silver talks about that a business model is the way that money enters your business. And I would also add stays in your business. That's the main function of a business model. And so, you know, there's the old sales funnel. Most of us are familiar with, you go to an ice cream shop, there's little pink spoons and you can get an ice cream cone.   So the kind of bronze, silver, gold level of things that, you know, the sales funnel broader at the top just more people are gonna do the free stuff and they're with a lot of secure people will do that. But, and the challenge I find is sometimes a business model is, I mean, the worst business model for a service provider is, you know, I do a single session once and that's it. Like I read your astrological life chart and then we're done. And you can never hire me for anything again and you paid me 100 bucks, but that was it. Yeah. Which was the case of a woman who went a pig years ago in a workshop. So then if you just said, well, and I also offer you can drop in for regular sessions with me. That's more money right away. And then if you said, oh, and I do packages and then I do workshops around astrology and I have a deeper mentorship program where we really go into, you know, you can come up with more and more levels and most people, most service providers in my experience have one level. And that's kind of it. I do single session one-on-one or even worse, I just put out a bunch of free content at the free level, you know, but they don't, they hardly have anything to offer. So mostly it's that I do single sessions and that's all. And in both directions, there's more, you know, in that going up in the funnel, there's the free stuff, which is just about safety for people to check you up before they spend any money. And then going down is more about sustainability for you. You know, is this gonna last? Because most of us I think our clients want more from us than we're offering, you know? And if we just said, oh, hey, like I remember for years, people would say, Tad, come to my city and do a workshop. And I had a lot of offers and I didn't really want to be traveling that much. And the one day I thought, what if I tried it online? It was just tele-seminar service, you know? So I did six calls, spread out over six weeks. And I had 40 people sign up at 200 bucks, which was $8,000 and it blew my mind. You know, but that wasn't a part of my structure, my business model. It wasn't an offering. But the thing is, it's not just having the offerings, but you know, I think the sales model is a good kind of remedial way and in reality it ends up being a bit more of an ecosystem of things, but you're at the center of that ecosystem. And so we want to set it up so that the only people who ever get to you are the perfect fit people. We're not gonna quibble on price. We're not gonna be like, well, I don't know if I agree with your point of view, they're gonna be a really good fit. And so then we set up all these things surrounding us as almost as filters, but that also sustain us. And then, you know, when people come to work with us, they've already been filtered for a great fit, which means also the word of mouth is gonna be better. They're gonna get better results. But the trouble is, we say, well, forget the rest of the ecosystem. I'm just gonna do this one-on-one stuff. Well, the question is still then, how do they hear about you? How do they get familiar with you and see if it's a good fit? And do you think somebody's gonna go from just having heard about you, just dropping 20 grand?  You don't go to a yoga studio and then just sign up for a teacher training when yoga is brand new to you. You probably have to go through a bit of a process of classes realizing how much you love yoga, how much you love this teacher, and then you realize that particular teacher is doing a teacher training. And then what would have seemed like an insane amount of money even months ago suddenly feels really reasonable, or it may be a stretch, but you can do it. But it takes a bit of that relationship building. So in a lot of ways, I think the sales, a business model is a way of letting them get to know you and build a relationship over time at the pace they wanna go at. And you're sustained by it along the way. Yeah, I love that, I love that. And so there's a common issue I'm seeing, which is a lot of us here watching this, like you do really deep work and you're like, okay, I wanna do really deep work. So some of these other things feel too shallow for me because ideally I would just be doing one-to-one in-person services or in-person retreats. Like by the way, by the way, like I actually, as me, George Cow, I love doing in-person stuff, whenever, but the last time I did it was years ago when I still had some local connections, I have like no local friends anymore. That's another story, I'm such a hermit around here, but it's like someone invited me over and spoke to an ICF chapter and it was, I love doing in-person stuff, but notice, and I love, like the two times I hosted or three times I hosted retreats, it was like some of the best experiences in my life.  I'm like, oh, I get tired just thinking about feeling, so-called putting butts in seats and the risk of the retreat center cost. And I'm like, oh, it's so much work. So I'm like, we're all diligent about different things, right? Like even though I actually really shine in-person, I really shine in the room. It's like, I just, I couldn't be bothered, just too lazy for it. But so it's not that, so that's the, but some people go, well, George, I just wanna do deep work and yet I don't wanna charge a high ticket price. I literally was just talking to someone the other day about that. I'm like, sometimes I just wanna say, I don't know what to tell you, like if you want this and you want that, but those two are not compatible, like how are you gonna, I wanna do deep work, but I don't wanna charge a high ticket price and I want marketing to be easy and I wanna have a great income. I'm like, in this universe with our laws of physics, I'm not sure it doesn't match. So let me stop here and see what you would say to that. Well, I would say that one of the, okay, I think a lot of people can relate to that feeling. You just really wanna get in there with people. You wanna do the deep work with somebody who's a really good fit, somebody who's really willing to show up, take responsibility, do all the homework, all the things we hear all the time. And someone who's gonna bring out your best where you can go to sleep at night feeling like, wow, my gifts were really well used. I helped the kind of people I wanna help, very fulfilled and satisfied, right? So then the question is, how do you get those people? And the reality is a lot of people when they come to you are even if they're a good fit on a lot of levels, they won't be on other levels. So the way I relate to a business model is part of the function of the business models to get them ready to be your ideal client to help them do that. So for example, if I was gonna, well, and this is not for example, hypothetically, I'm doing a retreat coming up in Duncan July 13th through 16th. And everyone who comes to that either is in my membership and already knows my stuff or will be required to watch the full footage of my day-long workshop. Yeah, because I don't wanna have to talk about what niche is or how marketing is. That language just needs to be there. They have to have watched that already. And so this can be a similar thing where you can have DIY programs, little video programs, Danny Gardner who lives QuietMarketing.com she says these tiny courses she sells. You could create that, you can say, yeah, before you work with me you have to have done these tiny courses. Now why? Well, so they're walking in with stuff already done. They're already primed. And then you can dive into the deep work. But the trouble is you wanna dive into the deep work. So I'm saying, great. So we're going to start working on your hubs. What's a hub? Oh, well, a hub is a, these are people who can toast to an intro workshop. What's an intro workshop? Oh, right, an intro workshop is the kind of thing where you share your point of view. What's the point of view? Well, the point of view is your take on how you help people in your niche. What's a niche? Well, you try not to be everything to everybody because if you do that, then it's, you end up leaning on the unethical marketing tag and you're like, what's ethics? You know what I'm saying? It's good. That's good. If we get to this point, it's like, oh, you're not ready to work with me for this program. So for you, we got to start with the ethics. And but do I want to, in that conversation, try to bring them up to speed and say all this stuff? Here's another example. This killed me. So I'd gone through something rough and I was looking for a therapist who did brain spotting. It was a modality I'd heard about. And my friend Brian says, oh, I got the person. I go to see her. 180 bucks. And I, the whole set, first, it's an hour long. And the first half hour is just for going over the ethics of, it's like, you know, this work. And it's like, and then here, and then, you know, I want you to read this. And I was getting angry and angry. So we weren't actually getting into any work. I had actually shared, you know, why I was really there. It was just all of this preliminary stuff. And then I mentioned this was $180. And so at a certain point, I just said, are we going to do any work? And so we'll normally this first session is we just go with the ethics. Now she hadn't told me that. That was not framed. This was literally all stuff she could have put in a video or PDF for me to read. And then I said, I'm feeling angry. And she just said, I hear that you're feeling angry. And I was like, oh, now I'm serious. But what I'm saying is I wasn't a good fit for I never went back. Partly because it just wasn't a fit. But if I'd seen some videos, I probably wouldn't have booked.  She could have had me showing up being so ready. Could have been like, you have to watch this. You have to understand the ethics of this and the principles. And here's some homework to do before the first session. So then you can show up and in that first session we can dig right in. And me as a client, because this is the other thing, your clients want to do the deep work. Your clients do not want to be bored shitless. Just going around in the shallow waters, they've been swimming in forever because they can't go deeper on the wall. They do want to go deeper. But if they don't show, if they don't have what they need to go deeper with you, they won't. And so that's what a business model is, is you're creating the structures and containers so that by the time they show up to whatever the offering is, they're ready for it. So that people don't just wander into a retreat. And like, yeah, a friend of mine said I should come and I'm not actually even sure what this workshop's about. That's a nightmare for me as a facilitator. That's a huge wild card I don't want to have to deal with. So we can set up our own filters and a business model can be part of those series of filters.  It should be something like that. It's brilliant. I love it. And there is so much to talk about in terms of, yeah, structuring these different pieces because the filter can be, you know, obviously some free content. It could be a book, two books, e-books, you know, audio books, it could be online courses. It could be large group programs, small, smaller group programs. It could be, you know, webinars, workshops, retreats. It could be, you know, collaborated, collaboration events like summits or panels and things like that. I mean, there's so many different possibilities for the business model and it can be overwhelming. So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's memberships, there's mentorships, there's masterminds, there's a million ways. So one of the first things I'd recommend is for people to have a sense of what some of the options are. That's number one. It's good to, and I've got a webinar coming up. I'll go over some of those and in the semesters we'll go deep into it. But, you know, you can ask around. What is your business model? What are your offerings? And you will start to get a sense of some of the options. And the way you choose, I mean, I'd refer to Alex Beasley, our colleague from bigdreamprogram.com, is you start with a lifestyle you wanna have. So you heard George say, oh man, traveling around, doing all those workshops, I'm exhausted. Whereas for me, it's, I actually wanna go travel to those places and I kind of, for me, it works. But you gotta start with a lifestyle you wanna have. Some people do not like one-on-one work. They only like group work. And for other people, it's the reverse. Other people, you know, you could have a legit, I'm waiting for somebody to do this, a business model based on just handwritten letters. And that's the whole model. Is you write me a letter, I'll write you a letter, one letter a month, back and forth, you know. That's a business model you could do. So the business model is the structure. It's kind of the way you do business. But you wanna choose a way that's actually going to be sustainable for you, that you could do over time that would actually lift you up, bring you joy. You know, I do, in my business, all the puttering sessions where I'm tidying or going for a walk while we do sessions. And that's just part of the deal. Let's say that again, because, you know, it's those who know you well know about this, but for those who don't, it's like, it's a revelation. So these are called puttering sessions. And the reason why they're called that is because Tad is when you get on the phone with him and it's phone call, it's not a Zoom, right? And there's no video. It's just, you know, you may hear buds or whatever and you're walking around puttering, cleaning a little bit of this or a little bit of that, maybe in your garden and whatever, you're puttering around while getting paid to talk to a client. I get paid to tidy my house. That's right, yeah, and these are popular. And actually, I feel like there's a lot of power in that because actually, I mean, when you're moving your body, you have a different level of intelligence than when you're sitting still looking at a camera or something like that or looking at the screen. So it's not just, it happens to be convenient for you, but it's actually probably quite good for the client as well. And also because I'm not resenting them and that's helpful for my clients.  Like, you know, people need to verbally process sometimes, but it's, I noticed I was resenting it. I was just, man, I just feel trapped. But when I wasn't on screen and I could be like, this morning I got my recycling all done, took out the compost, I can sweep things, I can get a lot done and then my home feels beautiful and tidy. I feel accomplished after, you know, so that's marketingforhippies.com slash puttering. If you want to check out the writing. Definitely, check it out, everyone. See how Tad describes it, you know, Tad condo, Marie condo, Tad condo. The magic, the life-changing magic of puttering sessions. I know who will do it in the garden or they do it while they're in the kitchen cooking things or they're working on their golf game or there's all sorts of things that people do while they're coaching, but that's, so it's a lifestyle thing. So, yeah. While they're on the toilet, no, okay. The toilet sessions. No, that's another business model for y'all. So, okay, we, I want to respect your time, Tad, and we're almost running out and I want to make sure, so this is amazing, this is awesome. This has been such a great conversation because I am excited. I'm like, shoot, I got to copy Tad now and do a whole course on business models. Yeah, I think I already have three courses on L, man. This idea has been scattered throughout various courses I teach an entire one, but I want to, I think all of you who are really interested in this, you know, Tad is already creating this offering and a community to talk about this, where you actually can see other many people's business models and what options there are and then why they chose that and then you'll get to share why you chose yours and, you know, get support, putting it together. So, I think the main thing those of you interested in this, you might want to consider Tad, the marketing for HIPPY's membership where, you know, we're spending a semester there and I'm going to have a, you know, Tad's going to interview me about business models and we'll have time to, you know, I'll be contributing basically in that semester as well. And other, you know, Tad has many colleagues that are going to contribute their business model teachings to it too. And so there's a whole semester on it. For those who are not sure you're ready for that, you're coming through the filters of marketing for HIPPY's Tad. Tad has a webinar that is much, you know, one-time event, you can see whether you want to continue on, but tell us a bit about the webinar. Yeah, it's going to be July 3rd, noon Pacific time, 25 US, there's a recording available and it's going to, you know, two hours of me just giving my core take about business model, what it is, why it matters, some examples, some, you know, things you can be thinking about and how you design your own, but basically laying out a lot of options. And then I think by the end of that, you'll know if you'd want to work with me on it or not, but whether or not you work with me, I think you'll have a sense of whether it's a thing you need to work on and whoever you work with, I would encourage you to get help with it because profitability does not come from marketing. Profitability comes from your business model. If you sell books and this book costs you 50 cents to make them, you sell it for 40 cents, better marketing only makes you grow book faster. So business model is the key to long-term sustainability and profitability as a business. It's awesome. And just to say it's a low-cost webinar, it's only $25 US, I think it's going to be great value. There are those of you who are watching this later after the fact, you can buy it on TAD's website, marketingforhippies.com. Go there, there's just so many free resources that TAD offers and e-books, low-cost webinars, and of course there's the membership itself where the community really hangs out and supports each other. TAD, thank you so much. You're always innovating and bringing much needed stuff to our fellow hippie business owners. So thanks for all that you do, man. Well, and just if you want to go further webinar, marketingforhippies.com slash events, and if you want to check out the webinar, marketingforhippies.com slash- Thank you, marketingforhippies.com slash events. I will of course put that below as well. So thank you so much, man. Thank you.


When it comes to quality content creation, I think about three values that really guide me and I invite you to consider these as well as your kind of North Star guiding light for your content creation efforts. I call it the arc of content creation, ARC, because I love acronyms too much and this one makes up an acronym as well. So A stands for authentic, of course, obviously. R stands for relevant and C stands for consistent. All right, let me talk through each of these. A, authentic, well, if you've watched any of my videos, you know that's something I prize highly and encourage you to do, but essentially I'll say this. Authentic content is not content that tries to sell your service, your product, your program, your retreat, your webinar, your book, not trying to sell, not trying to get the audience to pay money for something. That's not authentic content. Now that could be sales content. Sales content obviously is also on the spectrum. Selling content could be on the sales pages, sales copy, marketing copy can be on the spectrum of authentic to manipulative and whatever.  And secondarily, the more you genuinely are trying to serve humanity without expectation of return, the more authentic your content is. Ironically, the more authentic your content, the more sales you'll get. But don't tell anybody I said that. That's not the purpose because that's the trick this is the mental trick. The trick is if you go, oh, if I'm authentic, I'll make more sales, you're instantly inauthentic. You're instantly inauthentic. You instantly are hooked into the attachment towards results. The more you're unattached from results and say I create this as an act of genuine self-exploration and as an act of genuine service to humanity, no strings attached. I don't care if I get a single like. I don't care if this thing gets viewed once. If this thing gets read once, the more you can unattach the more authentic your content is. And this is something that all of us myself included are trying to do. It's not something we can, I don't know if I've ever been perfect on that and I don't know if I'll ever be perfect, but I try. And what I'm trying to is always detach, detach, detach from the results. Like I said, though, the more authentic, the more ARC you do, authentic, relevant, consistent, the better the results you get, including sales, but don't tell yourself that. The minute you tell yourself that, you've already gone out of the truth. See how tricky this is? It's kind of like, it's kind of like trying to fall asleep or trying to relax deeply. Oh, I gotta relax. You've come out of relaxation. Same idea. The moment you say, I gotta create flow, you're out of flow. And this is the message of Taoism, right? But it's not just Taoism. It's the message of spiritual growth, right? The moment you say, oh, God is here to do this for me. You're out of relationship with God, in my opinion. Sorry, those of you who are theologists may disagree, whatever, let's move on to AR, okay? So authentic is one. AR is relevant, okay? So relevance is essentially an act of compassion. Whereas authenticity is essentially an act of passion. Like you're doing it from a child-like passion to child-like passion and curiosity for experience, as well as a child-like passion to connect and enjoy and from the heart with the audience, with no strings attached, right? That's authentic. Relevant becomes an act of compassion. You've got passion and you've got compassion. Compassion means I so want to meet my audience where they're at so that I can play with them. I can explore with them. I can serve them. And so relevance means you create a bunch of content and then you look back and go, out of all of my passionate rants, and my, it doesn't have to be rants, but my passionate content, my authentic content, out of all of that, which of the last 10 pieces, which of the last five pieces, which of the last 100 pieces of content met the audience most where they're at. Because much of my passionate ideas are not, kind of like Buckminster Fuller, before his time. A lot of your passion ideas are before your time. And talk about it for 10 years, and it will be your time, just like with me for joyful productivity. It took me 10 years of passionately talking about it before people were willing to hire me for joyful productivity. 10 years. Do you have that patience? I don't know. So I didn't have the patience. I just couldn't help it. It was just my passion. I had to keep doing it. No matter if anyone paid me a dime, I had to keep doing it. Now, of course, I still have my day job of talking about authentic marketing. People paid me for that. People wouldn't pay me for joyful productivity for 10 years. But that was 25, 20% of my time. It's like 20%, 20% time, talk about the passion, 80% time, you still gotta make a living. So you gotta be as relevant as possible. So relevance is, anyway, I talk about all the stuff in the authentic content field course in terms of tracking your content so you can be more relevant than all that stuff. But I just wanna give you the big overview here. Relevance is compassion leaning in to, ah, this is, I notice this is when I, these are the times I meet my audience where they're at because they're obviously engaging and they're really excited or they're really thankful or they're really in agreement with me or they're really inspired or they're really, they find that funny or they find that interesting, they find that meaningful. Ah, I notice those things. And when I notice those things, it naturally makes me want to lean in there more because just like you, I too am a people pleaser. Just like you, right? All of us are people pleasers. We evolved as human beings to be tribal creatures. That's what I mean by that. I don't mean to be over people pleasing but I mean in your content, relevance is about people pleasing. Not in the bad sense, but in this compassionate sense of, if I'm talking a totally different language, I'm like, oh, you have no idea what I'm saying. I'm not speaking your language, but now I'm speaking your language. Those of you who's speaking English, right? So, oops, sorry about that background noise. Okay, so the last one is C, which is consistency. And this is where I know a lot of you struggle. I struggled with this too, because I'm a human being.  The monkey mind says, oh, that's interesting. Oh, let me do that today. Oh, notification on my phone.  Oh, I'm not feeling so good today. You shouldn't create content. You're not feeling inspired today. I just recently went through a bout of being bedridden because I got a bug bite down here in Mexico. The bugs are meaner. And I got a bug bite. I was like, wow, I've never gotten an affected foot from a bug bite before, but I did. So I was bedridden and I still created content. I don't give any excuses. When I had COVID, I created content. When I was bedridden with my bug bite, I created content. When I was bedridden with a stomach bug, which again, something in Mexico here, I have to get used to the bugs, but I got deeply sick for a week after eating something or I don't know how I got deeply stomach sick for a week. I still created content, no excuses. It's that kind of no excuse attitude that's gonna get you consistent. Oh, this thing has taken so long. You know, my content workflow is so, so difficult. No excuses, simplify. No excuses, something's going out today. Is it midnight yet? Not midnight yet. I can make a one minute video. Now, I'm not saying you have to make content every day, but once a week to me is a bare minimum once a week. Once a week, not once a month. No, once a week, except for once a week. Once a month, I allow you one week off. I take one week off every month myself. So three out of four weeks a month, bare minimum, bare minimum. When you're first starting to get into the rhythm and start exploring yourself and you don't know what's relevant yet, you don't know, you don't have an audience yet, you need to do three times a week. It's no question. I did five times a week when I didn't have, wouldn't have no audience for half a year, I did five times a week. And then for the second whole year, I did three times a week. And for the third whole year, I did, I think three times a week as well. And for the fourth whole year, I did twice a week. And now I do one time a week. But I have a big audience, not big, I don't have a small audience, but bigger than most people watching this enough to have a wonderful full-time business where if I want to sell something, I just whisper and enough people buy. It's that easy for me now. So I do one time a week, I'm 10. Plus my one week a month off. Now, all those numbers I just said are suggestions. They're not requirements. I'm not gonna, I make it sound like a requirement, but I always say, and this is where I end the video, you are your own creator. I believe in your sovereignty, not believe. I mean, I don't have to believe.  So whatever that means for you, whatever consistent means for you, you need to create that rhythm for yourself. You can break the rules. You can break my rules. My rules are my rules. My rules for me. I make it sound like they're rules for you, but they're not, I always want to remind you, they're never rules for you. They're rules for me. So you are your own creator and essentially maybe see the ARC in arc of content, see you can stand for creator. You are your own creator. You get to decide what your own consistent rhythm is. I hope this is helpful and may you go and thrive and really enjoy and really find value in your content creation journey.


scour the media to find it. And certainly Portland, because there's a lot of coverage that's happening every night. And the video I saw last night was in residential neighborhoods and fires.   And people are trying to put out the fire and everything.   He was jumping over this fire. And he's rioting. That's two strikes against him. And, you know, he kind of deserved it. So and the frantic effort to try to put out a put out the fire and they're not prepared. They they have no clue what they're doing. It. Yeah. Anyway, it's it's sad and pathetic. And what's sad and pathetic is, look, there's always a fringe within a culture that wants to see things born. There certainly is a fringe here that's nihilistic and wants to destroy and loot and and and and tear everything down.  They always exist. And I think still an insignificant portion, an insignificant portion of the American public. I think what's really pathetic, what's really sad, what's really depressing, what's really concerning and what really should worry all of us are the people who don't care or the people who try to justify it or the intellectuals giving this intellectual ammunition and presenting theoretical justifications for all this is going on. That I think is what is what should really scare us. And I want to I want to talk about the book, you know, in defense of looting again, which I talked about a few I think a week ago. I've now, you know, there's a number of other reviews that have come out in the book that are interesting that I'm going to recommend and John Cochran writes about it. It's good to see people catching onto this book. It's good to see people critiquing this book. It's good to see this book getting the prominence it deserves from a negative perspective. Now, before I do that, I just want to let everybody know I don't know if you know this, but in Portland, in Portland, Oregon, where these riots are going on every day, we're actually one of my supporters, one of the listeners to the show, have raised some money. Thank you, Ragnar of the Desert for helping fund. Fund yesterday, of course, was phenomenal. We raised over $1,000 here on the show. But Ragnar is also instrumental in getting and getting funding for two billboards. We're putting up, he's going to be putting up, Portland supporters going to be putting up two billboards in in Portland, they're not going to be a big billboard on the on the i5, I guess, that goes to the main part. They're going to be two smaller billboards in two locations in Portland. I don't know exactly where they're going to be. But it is, it is a, you know, it's going to be exciting to watch what happens. So as soon as the billboards are up, I will let you know as soon as the billboards are up, we'll see if subscribers or listeners to the show or contributions or any of these other parameters budge. And we'll see whether this idea of billboards is it works. But it's truly interesting. It's truly going to be interesting in the hub, in the center of rioting, in the center of where the far left is strongest, it seems, and is wackiest and is most evil. To have two billboards for the Iran book show is going to be exciting. And it's going to be interesting. And it's going to be, you know, we'll see if they burn them down, you know, that I make the news. Imagine seeing one of those billboards go up in flame being filmed on Fox News and, you know, with my picture and the URL being flashed across the Fox News, Fox News, that it was just the looting. It was just the riots. Everybody can see the immorality, the irrationality, the nihilism, the truly, truly disgusting aspect of that. And there's a massive, there's a massive movement against, against that, right, against writing and looting and so on. But it's the intellectuals who provide justification for it, who provide cover for it, who provide moral defenses of the looting, who so looting is good.  And yeah, you know, silently, you know, maybe among their close friends supporting the looting. It's the people who donate money without thinking about where it's going and that much of that money goes to the looting. That is the real ugly part of all of this. That is what is really horrific. And I told you last time, or a few, a few shows ago, about this book in defense of looting. And now there is a review of this book by, ooh, I can't pronounce the name, Grammy Woods in the Atlantic magazine. So I, you know, I definitely recommend this review in the Atlantic magazine, go there, support this review, give it a thumbs up, because it's got a lot of good stuff. And it really rips this book apart. It really shows the too evil of this book by quoting it, by critiquing it, by exposing it for what it really is, which is pure and utter communist nihilism.  That's what this book is about. You know, NPR, who did this very favorable, positive interview with the author of the book summarizes the book as an argument that quote looting is a powerful tool to bring about real lasting change in society. It is. If the change in society you want is the destruction of capitalism, the destruction or the remnants of capitalism, the destruction of markets, the destruction of private property, the destruction of the American system government. If you want authoritarianism, if you want, if you want authoritarianism that knocks everybody down into poverty, if you want the elimination of everything that has made this country good, prosperous and successful, then yes, looting is a powerful tool to bring about real lasting change. But the change is all horrific. The change is all disastrous. The change is all evil.   She says without police and without state oppression, we get rid of the police. This is again, I hulking back to the show I did about Rousseau. This is kind of Rousseau's vision. If we just get rid of the institutions, if we get rid of state oppression, if we get rid of a police, then we can all live in an anotic state of blissful savagery, where we can have things for free. Yeah, the things you can. What happens when you steal it all? What happens when you finish looting it all? What happens when all the stuff is gone because you stole it? Who's going to produce it? Who's going to sell it? If society is based on the principle of looting, if society is based on the principle of quote free, who's going to make it produce it, sell it, transport it, ship it. I think my voice was so loud that it set off one of the cars here outside the alarm on one of the cars. Hope it's not my car. Who is going to produce the stuff when society is just being looted across the board? So somebody says Andrew says that NPR apologized for not challenging factual inaccuracies in the book. Isn't that beside the point? Yes, it is beside the point. The issue is not factual inaccuracies. The issue indeed is the evil ideas, the evil philosophy, the evil ideology that is projected in the book, that is reflected in the book. It's not about this particular concrete or that particular concrete car stopped. No, I think it was actually me causing that. I think I pressed the wrong button on the whole neighborhood is pissed off at me right now. All right, it was the looters trying to break into the car and take it. So yes, it's not about facts. It's about moral philosophy, political philosophy. It's about the fact that the whole point of civilization is to stop violence.  That's the point of civilization. Civilization is the movement towards less violence, more protection of property, more privacy. But all of that is negated by the looters.  Why? Because they say the whole system of ownership, property, is innately and structurally white supremacists. The whole thing is structurally white supremacists. That's what they're about. They're about the destruction of private property. They're about to disseminate, you know, complete evisceration of private property. And indeed, our world's civilization is built on a bedrock of private property and the rule of law. And they negate all of that. They reject all of that. I mean, what the people in the streets, what the looters and what the intellectuals that support them, whether they are fully, fully thought this through or not, this is the barbarians at the gate. They represent barbarism. They represent the worst possible outcome. And to me, it's less again about the people in the streets, smashing stuff. Always going to get a few of those. It's more about the intellectuals. It's more about these books, people who write these books trying to justify it, trying to provide it with intellectual cover, trying to pretend that there's some intellectual or philosophical legitimacy to these ideas, to these actions. We're talking about the book in defense of looting, in defense of looting. There is a, again, a very good, very good review of the book in Atlantic Magazine. This, I'm not sure what issue of the Atlantic Magazine, but it's written by an author Graham Woods. It's an Atlantic essay in Atlantic Magazine. I would definitely recommend reading it. It truly is unbelievable. Now note, and I'll end with this on this particular issue right now. Note that, oh, by the way, I just want to make, well, I'll make that point afterwards. So it won't be the last point I make. Note that on the book in defense of looting, that doesn't recognize property rights, the property rights of this evil institution of white supremacists. On the cover of the book, it says, right under the copyright notice, it says, the scanning, uploading and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author's intellectual property. Thank you for your support of the author's rights.  You dedicate a whole book to the negation of the whole idea of rights, to the negation of the idea of property rights, and yet you declare, of course, that's a publisher stuck it in because the publisher is one of these capitalist entities in a free market, a capitalist thing that is still holding on to remnants of the idea that private property is a good thing and its intellectual property should and must be protected and defended. What we need today, what I call the new intellectual, would be any man or woman who is willing to think, meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason, by the intellect, not by feelings, wishes, whims or mystic revelations. Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of despair, cynicism and impotence and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist broods. All right, before we go on, reminder, please like the show. We've got 163 live listeners right now, 30 likes. That should be at least 100. I figure at least 100 of you actually like the show.  There you go. Start liking it. I want to see that go to 100. All it takes is a click of a click of a thing, whether you're looking at this, and you know, the likes matter. It's not an issue of my ego. It's an issue of the algorithm. The more you like something, the more the algorithm likes it. So, you know, and if you don't like the show, give it a thumbs down. Let's see your actual views being reflected in the likes. But if you like it, don't just sit there, help get the show promoted. Of course, you should also share and you can support the show at your own book show.com slash support on Patreon or subscribe star or locals and show your support for all, for the work, for the value, hopefully you're receiving from this.  So, yes, like, share, subscribe, support, like share, subscribe, support. There you go. Easy. Do one or all of those, please.


Welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel and this is American Issues Take Two and we're talking today about climate change, more specifically about the elephant in the room. It's still climate change. Maybe the crisis about climate change will just go away miraculously all by itself. That's not likely. We're going to handle that against the background of what's going on in other areas in politics, for example, in war, for example, and in distractions around the world. We'll be back in a moment. This discussion, we have Stephanie Stowe Dalton, our regular contributor and Vicki Caetano, our regular esteemed guest. Welcome to the show, ladies. So here we are talking every day about so many raw meat issues, if you will, especially domestic issues, but there are international issues that are just as important. What we really don't talk about, except in maybe the myopic context of the weather, is climate change. We see the floods and we see the droughts and we see the extreme weather and phenomena all over the place, increasingly in this country, affecting lives, properties, businesses, and ultimately the economy. But we don't really say that. We have the newscaster holding the mic in front of a storm or a flood or a drought.  The media is really not connecting the dots or calling for action. So Stephanie, let me go to you first. What does this reflect? Why is this not important? At the School of Journalism at UH, they're famous for saying the one most important story in our lifetimes, all of us, is climate change, and yet it's not being reported. It is an irony, isn't it? Since the person standing out there in the wind and whatever rains, no, is only out there probably because climate change is occurring and we're a degree warmer, we're two degrees warmer, I believe, than 50, 80 years ago. So that is a very good question, Jay. And it may be this pro-pro-healism that so people want to hear about what's going on in their world nearby in the neighborhood. But it is an opportunity to remind folk of getting as much control as we can have over the climate, which means taking care of some of our carbon emissions and thinking more seriously about of the efforts that are being made. I'm sure that that could be worked in if somebody in the policy department of our media would promote connecting to the bigger issue. It's a good time to remind people. You don't want to have this kind of destruction and damage and discomfort from the storm. There's a way we can reduce it. Why, Vicki, why does the press not connect it? Why do we do raw meat in Washington in the Beltway and Trump and Congress and the GOP and alternative measures focus on Europe and Ukraine and Putin and all this and further alternative to Xi Jinping in China and the possibility of war in Taiwan? All of those are so sexy, so raw meat, laced with the possibility of violence. But we don't talk about climate change. Why isn't that we put the priorities wrong this way?  And I think that one of the problems for us when you talk about the media is that there is a segment of our media that's owned and controlled by people who don't want to connect the dots or who don't believe that you can connect climate change to what's happening with what we've experienced in the last few years. And so, you know, media has now become not so much about journalism like what you folks do on ThinkTech, but it's more about the money. It's a business and what sells. And I think they're very hesitant to offend or reluctant to offend a part of their business line that would be impacted negatively in a financial way if they connected the dots. And that's why you're not hearing them talk about it or connecting the dots to what's happening to us with the failure in our country to address climate change. With that said, it's not so easy either, you know. And while corporations have been pushing on that in that direction, when you think about Hawaii's plan, for example, in 2045, we will be achieving 100% clean energy. Excellent goal. How are we going to do that? What happens to all of the automobile, the vehicles that we have, that are not going to be on this energy? Do we have all of the outlets where we can plug in electrical vehicles? Apartments, you know, think about how to execute that. So to the state's credit, they talk about this and they're going to put money on it, but the plan to execute is very challenging. But we have to start doing that. You alluded to the fact that some people in public conversations don't want to talk about it. And indeed, you know, an oil company might be motivated not to talk about it. And a media supported by an oil company might be motivated not to cover it.  I mean, medicine, vaccines can be politicized. School books can be politicized. And on and on, we can spend the whole show here talking about all the things that have become irrationally politicized.  Aside from corporations that have a clear vested interest in avoiding the issue, there are a lot of people that feel like denying the vote, they deny that climate change is happening. Absolutely, I'm sorry to say, but everything has been politicized as we have seen. And it's also created now the inability for us as a people to come together. And this is one of the biggest challenges because you want to solve big problems, big issues, you've got to come together and find those solutions. The other thing is we talk so much about it that I think it falls on deaf ears and the next generation talks about it some more. Think about if we put some action into this instead of just verbalizing the concern. We have got to put in to place action in Hawaii to make one of the things we have to start doing is taking a serious look at this plan in 2045. That is around right around the corner. How are we going to achieve that? If we don't start making headway now, the reality is we're going to start pushing back again and realizing that that's not a possibility. Yeah, you know, Stephanie, it strikes me that we have, we the older people look to the younger people to be conscious on this issue.  And my question to you is, are the young people awoke on this issue? Do they take the mantle of responsibility to go and lobby and make a plan, whatever, you know, and do clean energy and all the things you would want to do to deal with climate change, to ameliorate climate change? But are they doing that? And if they're not doing that, what's missing? What's missing in the world of that upcoming generation that could make them more conscious of this issue? Well, last day, the issue to shore does not seem to be climate among the young, except among selected groups. And of course, we have internationally young people working on it with Greta Thornberg, although she's controversial lately. But in Hawaii, that 2045 goal is laudable. And actually, it's just Honeywell is the big corporation behind that, which is really interesting. But I think that California has stepped up and Gavin Newsom has promoted actually a first world plan for achieving carbon neutrality by 2045. So there's a lot written up on this in order to cut the air pollution, reduce the greenhouse gas and make sure that the fossil fuels industry has been reduced considerably to maybe like one tenth of what it does for us now. And of course, the benefit would be that that and that would create millions of jobs like four million jobs or something that's predicted. So in California, I mean, I would hope there's more commitment to it. I know that in seeing climate, this climate plan from Gavin Newsom that's highly touted as the first really world plan to get to carbon neutrality is not accompanied by a mention of Hawaii, who also has a 2045 plan that Vicki just talked about. So I think that the publicity is a little low on this, as well as perhaps the action. I do know there's been a push and you all probably heard it too that hasn't gone over so well, but they're trying to make the point that gas natural gas is fossil fuel. And it seems to me there may be a confusion about where natural gas is coming from. And it looks like maybe there's an effort to educate people about that that is not a choice away from electricity that is away from fossil fuel. So there's lots of work to be done, many ways to come about doing that though should be very interesting to the youth of today. Well, I think the natural gas interests have been educating people to think that natural gas is a quote bridge fuel of that term. And it's okay. And a lot of people walk around with that notion it's okay because it's a bridge fuel. In fact, it's fossil fuel. You're right. And Jay, and Jay, the heart of gas is it's frack the fracking. So actually, actually, when you go a step further into it, it's really, really very unattractive and a death now for for the earth and in additional ways than just too much carbon. So Vicki, let's talk about the money for a minute, you know, my wife and I went to Reykjavík, Iceland a few years ago. And, you know, they used to have glaciers and snow covered vistas used to be really beautiful, cold, northern, you know, kind of Scandinavian environment but further north. But when we went, we found that there were no glaciers to speak of. The snow and ice had receded, temperature had improved.  I thought you guys were, you know, concerned about that. Well, the fact is there's a lot of people visit Iceland and they don't want to stress the notion, you know, that they're no longer the old Iceland we thought, you know, was an example of how to deal with climate change. And I think, you know, that's in their own self-interest, isn't it? And so it's no longer priority, at least not in the conversation they have with tourists. And I suggest to you that even in Europe, you know, where they try to raise money, money is so important, we talked about that a minute ago. The European countries, the EU, the NATO countries, they're busy thinking about, you know, Ukraine and Russia and the future of the liberal world order, which is very important, for sure. But they're giving their money to Ukraine, not to climate change.  So it seems to me that you'll have to follow the money, because the money is a metric of the level of interest that we have, not only here, but everywhere in the world. Yeah, I was just going to bring that up, Jay. That's absolutely right. Follow the money. Isn't it ironic, if you think about it, one of the most impactful things to climate change is all this traveling. And here we are in Hawaii, the most remote location for people to come, you know, they've got to travel a long distance. And so we're talking about assessing visitors a fee. But the fact that they have to travel this distance is one of the biggest impact to climate change, to the fact that they have to come here or for us to travel there. Think of what that does to the economy. So follow the money. But I think it's very ironic. We talk about it. We don't talk about the elephant in the room, which is coming to Hawaii. That in itself is one of the things you should be looking at or for us going to the mainland. You know, there was a piece on 60 minutes only a few days ago about fusion energy.  And, you know, it's enough to heat a kettle of tea right now. But, you know, the dream is that soon enough we'll have fusion energy that will light the world. And for that matter, apply those planes you're talking about. However, you know, the issue, and this is really important, is you got some people saying, oh, yeah, I'm going to do that in five years. Sure, we are. We've been studying fusion for 50 years. And others are saying, well, you know, how about 2050, 2060 before it becomes a reality? You know, what I get out of this biggie is that we are confused about the timeline. The 2045 clean energy timeline was let's throw it on the wall and see if it's fixed kind of timeline. There was no science behind that at all. So query, you know, here we have fusion, which is, you know, that would be the great Machia that we could have fusion energy and do all the stuff without having a negative effect on climate. But we don't know when and although we're putting some money into it, maybe a lot of money into it, nobody can tell us it's going to happen soon enough. So we're in a race against time. Won't you agree? That's right.  And sometimes I wonder if these things are being touted to just kind of pacify people to buy more time. But we've run out of time already. Yeah. You know, when what was his name Al Gore made that movie Inconvenient Truth back in the 90s. I can tell you, I was at a dinner party and somebody told me the movie was playing around the corner at the varsity theater.  I said, I had to see the movie goodbye, everybody, because I realized that this was the biggest story of our lifetime. Nobody else stood up just me. What I'm saying is that that was a big story in the 1990s. Is it as big a story now or is it maybe a smaller story? You know, and Stephanie, I went to see a play at St. Anthony's. Hank Rogers and Blue Planet funded this play. And it was about clean energy and climate change among other things in the future.  And I said, my goodness gracious, this is really a statement of affecting the next generation. But I haven't seen that play later. And I haven't seen a whole lot later. And I think that our level of education for that generation we talked about is actually on the decline. You know, think about all the trouble in Washington, the trouble in schools, the trouble in the libraries, the critical race theory kind of perversion of our education for these kids. We're the same priority problem that exists globally exists in the schools and it exists in the hallowed halls of Congress where they're supposed to be making public policy. What happened? Why aren't these kids and others forcing Congress to do something? Well, that's such that's the question, right? And before we get into that, the Congress, I wanted to share my astonishment that would be very attractive for schools to take on. Is that if all of the moocows, the cattle were controlled better, fed different things and had their methane production reduced, that it equals what we could get out of changing over to electric cars. Now, I'm sure that I mean, I can't give you a citation or an actual scientific number, but it wasn't from a credible source. And I found that astonishing that we have something that we are perfectly able to address and at least take care of something that would make a pretty immediate difference and give us some momentum on it. And that is something that would be a great theme for all of our schools and for youngsters to learn so much about our relationship with the animal kingdom and how the animal kingdom can do just things that have the same unfortunate impact as human behavior. But yeah, so then going over to the Congress, I'll let you take that away because we're right up against it. Why everybody wants to continue to be a coal miner or wants to support, you know, what better elevators to take more people down into larger shafts to get to the coal? Why are we investing, you know, in that and being pursued and tormented to be careful about reducing our coal mining? So maybe that's something to talk about. I mean, I understand that the coal mining is, you know, traditional and cultural, but it's what has in the past ruined London and is now about ready to ruin the rest of the world. You know, Vicki, we've talked about the United Nations many times as the, you know, de facto single global leadership organization. We've criticized them because they have this problem in the Security Council with the veto, you know, the worst of our member nations. And so you wait for the United Nations to do something dispositive, but they haven't. And they can't. They can't raise the money and they can't come up with a, you referred to it, the PLAN. So if I give you a clean energy by 2045 aspirational in Hawaii and elsewhere, is that a plan? How do you make a global plan for a global problem? Gavin Newsom operating in California, is that a global plan?  What about all climate change? Is that local too? Don't we have to have a global plan? Where's that going to come from? And this is the hard question I saved for you, Vicki. What does that plan look like? You know, I think when, while you talk about a global plan, I think that that's going to be extremely challenging because most countries are going to say, look in your old backyard and do what you need to do. And this to me is the ironic thing that we recognize in Hawaii, how important climate changes. I don't think if you talk to most people in Hawaii anyway, nobody disagrees with that. And yet we're talking about building more buildings, more residents, more hotels at the same time, because nobody wants to talk about reducing visitors, follow the money. And so we talk about all these ideas, but we're not willing to really move the difficult issues forward that we know we have to do. That may be the moment of the statement. What would it take, Vicki? You know, there's a storm out there with our name on it, you know, like some of the really destructive storms that we have seen over the past few decades. There's one coming and it is going to be a whopper and it is going to hit, you know, Honolulu, for example. And just because you live on a hill or I live on a hill doesn't save us because the society will collapse down along the water in terms of following the money for the hotels, the economy, all the services and goods that we rely on. And so if this storm hits, for example, Honolulu and stops our society, nobody is exempt. Nobody is safe. We are all directly affected. So I give you two thoughts about that. You know, one is when that happens, we are going to get the message. I promise you, we are going to get the message writ large when the whole Hawaii just stops and tragedy in every corner. That's one aspect of it. The other is it doesn't take, you know, a whole lot of political savvy to realize this is coming. And to become not only sustainable, but resilient so that we can recover after it happens. And I actually don't see a plan on either the sustainability, you know, a comprehensive plan on sustainability or on resilience. What'll it take? Well, Jay, can I submit one real terrorizing fact? And I've had some interest in windows on the condominiums over the last couple of years. And as I understand it, our windows in all of these condominiums that are more and more completely glass are only able to withstand a category three. So if, as you say, something like a five or close to it hits Honolulu, we will be so devastated. I can't even imagine recovering within any reasonable amount of time will be more in a devastation and needing FEMA and aid and death desperation. So it's such a good point that she raised. And why is it that we don't have windows that are capable of surviving that hundred year storm that's coming here like it comes everywhere by a Sandy in New Jersey. But also the corporations are behind this. And we don't, you know, we talk about the Congress and our Congress people who are not diligent on it. But Howard Hughes is, you know, I think he's on his seventh condominium now going up here. Exactly. As you say, coming in and sucking up all this additional electricity. And this is another question. What's their role and how can government partner better with corporations? And especially here, we will suffer from this and maybe lose it for who knows how long if we got hit with a storm like that, there'd be nothing going on. I'm going to speak about COVID. I think this could be much worse than that. Now, Vicki, let me deflect that question to you. What's the role of, you know, the developers? What's the role of the corporate community? What's the role of the, you know, gee whiz, the NGOs, the nonprofits? What's the role of the average citizen? What's the role of the government? What's the role of the executive people in the government? The legislature? What's the role of the courts? And how do you how do you get them to play that role? No, exactly, Jay, you know, to really make an impact. Well, Hawaii is so small, okay, in fairness. And one of the things we always say is that what we admit doesn't have the kind of global impact that California, the United States, other parts of the world do. But with that said, everybody does have a responsibility to play a role in this. And we need to create those plans in order to mitigate the impact of climate change on us, as we've been seeing already. But I think when you say follow the money, this is one of the challenges between the unions and corporations. Nobody is willing to pay that big price that is necessary to be part of having a bigger plan. So, you know, we'll throw money here and there, 100 million, 50 million. I think leadership is just praying that something major doesn't happen on our watch. Take the can down the road, shall we say, and let the next generation deal with it. I think in all honesty, that is truly the plan. And for now, we do small bits and pieces here. Like I said, I applaud the plan for the 2045 to alternative energy completely, 100% clean energy. But I'd really like to see executing that plan. Because all I see is 10 years from there saying we need another 25 years to do this plan. So it sounds good. But if you stop and think while we're talking about that, as Stephanie pointed out, we're building more buildings in Kakaako, more hotels coming up, visitors are still coming. And that really is the impact climate change. And you think of what Hawaii could do. But there's a huge price associated with that. Yes, absolutely. And we have to have the reserves to pay that price. And every time we develop a surplus, we give it away. Like in payments of hundreds of dollars to each taxpayer. I say one of the things under consideration is a $300 payment to every taxpayer. So what is that about? Couldn't we use that on some common benefit, common goal, common plan, like climate change? And so at the end of the day, we don't have a reserve for this. And at the end of the day, we don't spend the money for this to harden ourselves. And what's interesting, there's a dynamic here. Let me go back into history. Back in the day, that is after Al Gore and the movie in the in the odd years, there was so much conversation in Hawaii about climate change. Now there isn't. And there was all the talk about having the money, worrying about the extreme weather, all that. Now there really isn't. And I take your point, Vicki. I think what's happening is that our officials are saying, well, you know, if we have extreme weather, we're really going to be in for it. And if we're in for it, everybody's going to leave town and nothing left here. So let's just rely on good old fashioned luck. That's what I agree with you. It'll be too late to do anything. I gotta go now. Bye. You know, the fact is that Hawaii could distinguish itself. Don't you think, Stephanie, we could take our own advice. We could be more sustainable, more resilient. We could deal with this. We could have a reserve. We could create a fund. We could, you know, change our building codes and the like to be better prepared for that weather. And we can survive that way. I'm sorry. No, I was going to say, like, while we want to continue having visitors come, because that is the heart of our, you know, for our state's economy. But why not take a look at the visitor impact to our state? Why not have hotels monitor the utilization of energy that guests use? Why not make them a partner versus just giving them free reign on how they consume energy? So there's ways that we can, you know, we can't cross that bridge overnight, but we got to start implementing some of these things in order to counter the impact of climate change. I would like to say that if there any aspiring executive politicians for those who's out there who might want to be a leader in Hawaii, this is a really important topic, which we're going to be facing up to sooner than we probably want to. So what it would be interesting to hear from people about what would be a plan for making these changes from someone interested in doing that at the highest level as governor or lieutenant governor. So there we have some really good questions and some momentum here on getting at that topic and getting it discussed in the ways that there can maybe be a difference made, because I don't see it happening now. There's a problem with the democracy because, you know, the public officials respond to the lobbyists that respond to their constituents, but they don't look over the horizon. They don't they don't make plans for things that are obvious. And so the science that tells us that the sea level will rise, the science that tells us that our weather will, you know, destroy a good part of our, is likely to destroy a good part of our economy. That's just not, nobody is advocating, you know, that's the problem. You know, you guys, I was looking at some of our old shows back in 2013, 2014, and I had a very interesting show about climate change. We called it, I forget what we called it, but and one of the points that came up was, why don't we have more young developers out of school? Developers take risks anyway. We have to teach those kids out of school that taking risks, I wrote, that's okay. It's okay in business. It's okay in entrepreneurship and in, you know, technology, development, all that, to be okay in developing properties. And they are the ones who presumably understand that they have a leg up. They have an interest in this. And because it's going to be their state soon enough. And if we had more young developers who were awake on climate change, maybe the developments would be different. Maybe more like the kind that Stephanie talks about. But if you were looking for a comprehensive plan, that an executive official of the state might adopt and run with and take a risk, a political risk with and dedicate some money and time and attention and twist some arms about, what would it look like? Well, I think that there is a plan out there. And I think what everyone should be looking at is what it would take for them as part of the community to execute that plan. So in our business world, for example, we have a lot of transportation vehicles. How are we going to manage that? And the state should be a partner in that. Do you expect a business to convert fully to the alternative energy? Is there some kind of incentive? Because it's a huge price tag to do that. How about small business? How do they play a role? So I think every business, as a start, should put down, this is the plan. How are you going to be able to achieve it? It's all these pieces that we have to connect together in order to achieve that goal. That takes leadership, doesn't it? And it takes priority. It sounds like I'm repeating myself, but part of leadership is priority. And the will to do it. Well, Stephanie, if we do nothing, this is the Charles Dickens approach. And we look at the ghost of Christmas future.  What happens to Hawaii? Well, I think that Hawaii's loss would be a detriment, would be suffered by everybody on the planet in addition to just generally being sorry to have anybody. You're right. I want to make that distinction. You know, there's the extreme weather, there's the sea level rise that would definitely affect us. But there's also, you know, the notion of too much rain in one place, too little rain in the other place, drought, you know, sort of ubiquitous things that affect the whole planet. And we have to make a distinction. I mean, if we all get in electric cars, that is not going to do that much for Hawaii specifically, but it will help climate change around the world. So you have to make that distinction, don't you? Yeah. Well, I mean, we don't want to have Hawaii be just the tip of Mount Akea with the telescopes up there, which would leave it, you know, as a very important point on the globe. But nobody, everybody would be interested in this. And I mean, I am curious that Miami is already underwater. They're keeping a lot of stuff undercover there. But their flooding is just enormous. Their drains are not working for getting things into the ocean. So it's all out there about ready to pop. And it may be that the signs and the dangers that we're already in are going to pop and get people to get a little bit smarter about this. But it does take, as you say, that all the communities have to be involved, especially the scientists and the UH and the universities. And how are we going to make all of this come together in a scientifically based manner that not only can all corporate areas and other areas of commerce help with this small business, but also even the military. I mean, they're in jeopardy here, too. If they lose their Kanoi Bay and Pearl Harbor resources and have everything dry dock flooded all the time, that's not going to work either. So I mean, it's not anything to be ignored. But we are ignoring it. But it'll get to the point where it won't be ignorable anymore. Maybe we have to go there. Yeah. One of the points you made is that it seems to be accelerating. Every time you look, you see a story in the press that, you know, it's happening faster than we thought. This is very, very troubling. So, Vicki, let me let me put the dickens question to you. We talk about following the money. We talk about the hotels and the, you know, the Hawaii mono economy. If we have a sea level rise, if we have climate change, if we have a problem with tourists coming here, hotels operating here because nobody thought about a way to deal with this, what happens to Hawaii? What would we do then? And what would be the effect? So I think that if we just carry on as we're doing, making small kind changes, as we say, we're already seeing what the future is going to be, except it will be exacerbated. The problem will be even bigger. The big tsunami that comes is going to create such tremendous damage. That is what's going to happen. I think people don't have the kind of timeline that you see. And that's why it continues to move along so slowly. They think, oh, it's not going to happen in my lifetime. But if we make this difficult change, it's going to impact how I live, impact jobs, we have to change, look at other industries. It's a big undertaking and it does need leadership to bring people together and to connect all the dots. The easier way is to just hobble along as we are. And whether it's in 10 years or 30 years, we're going to see the problems we're experiencing on a much bigger scale and more frequent. And I think that many people are, frankly, opting to do that just by time. Take a chance. Rely on old-fashioned luck. Hope that storm passes us by all the... And then, of course, we have... We can't disconnect this from the fact that Congress doesn't care. Do you think Marjorie Taylor-Green believes in this discussion? Do you think that for one minute she cares about climate change?  So, Congress, you can't count on Congress to do anything. And I think that's one of the lessons I take away and I'd like to know here in the last moments of our show how you feel about that. Joe Biden is trying. He's trying. But, clearly, is it enough? And with a dysfunctional Congress for the foreseeable future, can we act at the national level? And if we cannot act at the national level, for any number of reasons, can Hawaii do enough to protect itself on both of those areas of exposure? That is, how climate change would affect us and how the world's response, the world's succumbing to climate change would affect us overall. So, anyway, we're out of time almost, and I'd like to ask you to make final comments. Stephanie, you first. I think we have to want to hear more from our leaders, our reps. There are 210 or something people in the House that we're not hearing it from at all. So, I think we are in good leadership position with President Biden, and we'll keep on going here. But you're right. The political situation is dire. That needs to be jerked up into action, and hopefully it will be by the ideas and the interventions more than by the next catastrophe we have in Hawaii or hopefully not in Miami. In Miami and hopefully not in Hawaii. Let's let the mainland areas that are impacted by this are in much better position to work on improving them before we have to face even more effect of it. But a good point you make is that if the mainland and the United States economy suffers, and ultimately it will, for the lack of action, that will have an effect on Hawaii right there. It would make it easier for Hawaii to do it. Absolutely. So, your final comments, Vicki, what would you offer our viewers to carry away from this? When they wake up tomorrow morning, what should they be doing? I think that while there are many voices, we need leadership to bring people together. And I would propose that even if we're not able to make big changes, getting everyone together to make the kind of changes they need in their household, in their neighborhood, in their business, make some kind of progress is better than nothing. And it is that action together that will bring people to connect the dots so that we can be willing to make the bigger compromises that ultimately lead us. So smaller steps is sometimes necessary in order to achieve the big success. And I think everybody has to try just a collaborative trial, a try, a collaborative attempt, a collaborative effort would be the best we can do. A joint one. Yes, joint. Thank you both. Thank you, Stephanie Stoldo, and thank you, Vicki Kantanos. So enjoy these discussions. All the best to you guys. Thanks. Aloha. Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktecawaii.com. Mahalo.


It's many thousands of years in the future. There are different races of genetically engineered humans on thousands of planets all over the galaxy, but the Earth Empire collapsed many thousands of years ago. In fact, Earth has become mythological. This one guy from a high-gravity planet, his name is Mass, he decides he's going to go on a quest to find out exactly what happened to the Earth Empire and specifically what happened to these mythological, magical, living starships. The first half of the book is one of the most entertaining and engaging reads I've had in a long time. The story of this guy's quest as he travels the different planets encountering the different races, having very interesting and enlightening conversations with the various races, including a planet full of living robots who have long forgotten why they were built by the ancient empire. And then halfway through the book, it makes a U-turn and becomes very uninteresting. And the rest of the book, instead of being interesting, it just gets preachy. And one other thing, you do not want to be a woman in this universe. Please remember to press that like button. It helps my videos get seen. And then subscribe so you can come back next time. I do science fiction book, TV, and movie reviews all the time. And please consider becoming a patron. There's a link in the description below. When you pledge at the $20 level, I will send you a random science fiction book in the mail every month.