Hey, Bolo buddies. Thanks for watching. All right in this video We're gonna talk about big money Bolo's items to be on the lookout for items you can buy low and sell for a profit I'm gonna tell you where they got it what they paid for it and what it's sold for. So let's get started here This is a featured eBay store video. So basically I'm gonna show you one stores big money Bolo's and why am I doing this because everybody sources different and This is Edge City Traders. I will link them down below and go and save their eBay store right now they have 680 items sold 51 followers So if you follow them by clicking on the heart when they send out coupons or when they list new items You will get notifications. So it's a great way to Possibly snag a deal. So check out their store here lots of really great items Again, that will be linked down in the description as you can see Lots of breakables the things I shy away from but things that do sell. So let's get started here They do have a YouTube channel not much content on them But I will link that down below also and you guys can subscribe to them there as well So they had a little tip here about Mexican folk art pottery or plates They said I thrifted these separately and paid a total of six dollars for both They sold on Etsy for thirty six oh three that includes shipping She said I do not recommend picking up this type of Mexican Mexican pottery Unmarked and brightly colored with lots of tiny figures. It is hand-painted, but it is also mass produced tourist souvenir pottery so It's still sold. So if you can source it super cheap, she did sell it on Etsy but she's saying it's not as Desirable because it's mass produced. It's it's more popular But hey, you know it sold now this one. She said vintage Mexican folk art pottery. Here we go pot ham Bon She wrote it out for me, and I'm still messing it up pot ham Bon That's what it's called vintage Mexican folk art pottery pot ham Bon green chicken rooster bull Mexico terracotta redware double two handle open sugar dish She said she got it at unique thrift for two dollars and fifty cents and sold on Etsy to a buyer in England Who was all in for fifty three eighty six The next Etsy item Says although this bowl was unmarked I was able to look it up and identify the type of pottery using Google Lens if you don't know how to use Google Lens It's a free app type Bola buddies Google Lens into the YouTube search And I will show you exactly how to use it. It is awesome. And if you're a reseller, you have to have it It's a must-have Vintage MCM art glass coaster set paid eight dollars at an antique mall sold on Etsy for fifty six seventeen Including shipping to California. These looked very mid-century to me and they were heavy and substantial The textured glass reminded me of patterns of light and shade in a swimming pool So I put pool party In the title the buyer told me that she was buying them to use by her pool and that they make her feel Nostalgic for the 70s All right, there you have it Vintage MCM art glass coaster set pebble ripple textured colors green amber cranberry mid-century modern 1960s 1970s Pool party patio. Check it out Let's look at some of these other photo photos Look at that. Those are cool. Those are really neat Really neat. Okay. Let's look at this next one So now we're going to go over to ebay and we are going to start from Some of the ones that were just interesting to me that I asked for info on And then we're going to get into the big money. So this first one. I was just like It's a cricket. Yeah, it's a cricket. It's a realistic metal grasshopper six inch large vintage lucky hearth cricket green Uh, she said the person I bought it from told me that there is a legend about it being lucky to have a cricket In your fireplace and that this was his lucky fireplace cricket except that it actually Is a grasshopper. That's why I put lucky hearth cricket in the title It's a grasshopper. Oh my goodness. That's hilarious Um, she said she bought it at an estate sale for two sold on best offer for 10 plus shipping She said it's gigantic six six inches long realistic looking metal grasshopper It would no doubt have sold faster for more money, but its antennas were missing Yeah, it does look a little funny without its antennas. Now this next one. I just love this They are koozies. You guys know like koozies. Would you have walked right past these? They are neoprene mexican import beer zip neck bottle logo Is let's see pacifico clara koozies Uh, bought a unique bought at unique. I think that's the thrift store name In a baggie with four other koozies paid two dollars and 80 cents for the baggie of about Or about a dollar 20 for these three and they sold in a couple of weeks for my full asking price of 18 dollars and 88 cents Plus shipping when I look these up. There were no comps. Also. The tags don't have barcode. So I figured they were a promotional item So something like that you just take your best guest or you do an auction and you hope it sells and it looks like They sold it. There you go Uh, this one right here. I couldn't get the listing to open up, but I love this little guy You guys know I love selling plush. So of course I picked this one out. I've never seen him before He's a booba a boo ba 2004 orange play school zing zing zing ba being stuffed animal plush toy Uh, yeah 2004 paid three dollars and 50 cents at the goodwill sold on offer of 16 dollars and 88 cents plus shipping And it looks like it has the original tag And swivel sticks if you don't know Some vintage swivel sticks even if you can find the singles the vintage advertising ones can be Really nice profits. Um, I don't want to say all of them are big money No, most of them are not but every once in a while you can find one that really stands out But it does take time to look them up So if you're ever in a state sale and you see a big pile of swivel sticks Not these necessarily but the ones that are plastic with vintage advertising You might want to pick those up And you may want to look them up too because some of them do well Uh, all of swivel sticks that picked up at the goodwill for two dollars and 50 cents and sold for 25 83 shipping Including shipping I picked this up because it was a complete set new in the box and pretty cool looking Yeah, I love the little front advertising. I don't know how old it is. It does have a barcode. It's made in china But they are definitely retro looking for sure. So 1688 plus shipping on those Okay, let's look at this next one. She's got it in parentheses here. How to pronounce it chesta chawa Chesta chawa Madonna it is a I think it's a a print. Let's see a varnished print or an original painting She's not sure so let's take a look at the photos here It looks like she said she took a best offer of 30 dollars and paid three dollars and 50 cents for it at the goodwill I do love how they take the time to do this. I am way too lazy to do this but uh, they point out the flaws with a little arrow, which is really really Really smart, but time consuming So let me know if you guys do anything like that in the comments Or if it's something that you may think of doing in the future Oh, look at this frog iron frog candle holder bought on SGW In a lot of eight animal figurines and figural items that cost approximately 350 each sold for 41 80 It is a iron frog candle holder cast pillar waiter bow tie tray spike floor table vintage How cool is that? That's a fun item This next one is a counted cross stitch kit 12 floral bookmarks That's fun. Don't know how to say that her Chanel shirt her schners la flora Flowers we'll just say that paid 350 in a state sale sold for 36 88 plus shipping There were no comps for the cross stitch kit But I knew it would sell for a decent amount because of the subject matter and complexity and because it makes 12 bookmarks I could probably have sold it for more the next item Is hold on a second. Let me see what's going on here Okay, two mug set penguin books publisher logo advertising black matte ceramic orange These are mugs and you know, I hear a lot of people say I I don't pick up mugs because they're so expensive to ship And usually there's not a good return um, I'm I don't pick up a lot of mugs, but there are certain mugs like heartstone. I I don't know. I always pick up heartstone mugs It's one of those things I find them in Ohio all the time Some of them do okay. Most of them are bread and butter. I haven't been picking them up as much lately But yeah, some mugs do really well, but they are expensive to ship Let me know down in the comments. Do you sell mugs? So these are penguin books And got at the local Goodwill for $1.50 each So three dollars total for both sold for 4408 with shipping. She said I do really well selling literary themed mugs I will buy a single mug, but a matched set is even better turned burl wood bought at Goodwill for 34 97 And sold for 34 plus shipping Oopsie this was an early buy and I paid too much I researched the item before I bid on it and I thought that I could sell it for close to 100 However at that price it was not getting any interest. So I gradually lowered the price okay So what's good to know about this is that we all make mistakes and it was a bad buy But it's pretty cool and some of these do go for a lot of money This one for some reason did not I don't know so You can oh look at that. It's got a glass tube in it. Huh? Wow turned burl wood lat lat lat art bud vase vintage sculptural so you can it's a vase Wow, that's kind of cool Huh, I don't know her keywords are great But anyway, so she lost money on it but definitely something to Just kind of show that we all make mistakes, but It is a cool item. I'm surprised it didn't go for more hand carved wood thinly fryer fryer statue communion Shallie's painted religious reed So she's probably got something in the description that tells maybe some details about the item I do that also I will put reed in the title because most of the time people do not read unless you put reed hand carved wood Finley frayer bought on shop goodwill for 23 and sold it for 44 80 This was another early purchase that turned out to be a bad buy. I did not research the figure before bidding on it I also did not closely look at the photos. So I missed the fact that the paint is damaged on the back of the statue So Let's see I'm guessing she probably pointed out The issues maybe right here Oh, I see right here Yeah, but it's old, you know, it's old All right, so she did make her money back plus some money so if you find something like this for a dollar pick it up, but uh She didn't make money because she overpaid, but we all do that sometimes Okay Here's another one She said I consider it a bad buy because the profit margin is smaller than I like it is not a very popular Laudro Or wait, I'm sorry. It's Yadro Yadro figurine So it took a while to sell and Yadro figurines are very delicate. So it takes quite a while to pack them She said today, I would pay no more than 12 for this figurine All right, so Yadro is a very very There for a while. I was hearing a lot about it. I haven't heard as much about it lately This is the makers mark on the bottom There are a lot of figurines out there that look like Yadro that are not So look for the makers mark. I don't know if they're all marked the same. I'm I don't I've never found one I know some of them can go for crazy big money and others not so much this one. She said Picked up from an estate sale. She paid $40 for it And it was early in her reselling career and sold it for $6805 including tax and shipping So yeah, she took probably a little bit of a loss on that after fees But it is a great brand and it is something that you guys should definitely know about Flamingo Windsor brooch pave crystal peacock icy rainbow gold tone statement piece. Look at that Wonder how she found that you think Google lens Google lens Picked it up at the goodwill uh the Per I was like price per piece the per item price was about six dollars and sixty cents So That's a lot um I researched this unsigned vintage rhinestone brooch used google lens and found that it was a replica of a famous brooch that edward the duke of windsor had commissioned Cartier to make for his wife the duchess of windsor So I added the word windsor to the title and included a photo of the duchess of windsor Wearing her cartier brooch the brooch sold on 15 person off sale for 62 dollars and 80 cents So I think as long as all of that is explained in the description that it is not an original I think that's fine But um, I don't know. Do you guys would you have done that or do you think? That could add some confusion. Let me know what you guys think in the comments always Welcome to have a discussion down below Um with different opinions on different things I don't include any extras because i'm not researching anything. I don't have time My husband on the other hand research is everything That is what I love about what not is that I can just bring my jewelry to what not and I can show it to you guys And you can bid on it and have I lost money? Absolutely, but you know you guys are making money. It's fun. It's a quick way to move inventory Yes, I know I could sell it for more on ebay. I've had people tell me that all the time. Yes, I know but um I enjoy it and I hope to see you guys at a what not show someday My link is down below if you guys are not on what not definitely check it out Um, I do have a referral link. You'll get $15 to shop if you use that so Come check me out. Bolo buddies on what not. All right, let's look at the next one here Uh rossin thall la Plates for lunch plates here holland america pattern cobalt blue and gold So these look really just pretty simple Oh, there's a little detail. There we go. And here is what the back looks like um Goodwill outside baltimore for a dollar fifty each six dollars total in researching the pattern I discovered that it is exclusive to holland america Lines so I put that in the description sold it for 68 66 including shipping. So again Definitely somebody who researches their items unlike me One rim chip round plate. Look look at the detail you guys. This is awesome I mean if you have time to do this and I mean it's smart It's smart, but I don't do it But I also am not selling breakables on ebay very I Rarely sell I shouldn't say never Shouldn't say never Uh, let's see How about this vintage morano swan goose art glass red yellow summer sew adventurine mid-century that is rad And you can see here it's got the red background Look at that you guys Is that amazing? Who likes it on the blue? whoop whoop All right, kind of a hard item to photograph because it's got that clear beak Uh wood ducks. Oh no wait, uh Hmm morano swan goose purchased on ebay for myself for 41 20 after a couple of years I decided to sell it sold on ebay for 69 37 Including shipping so pretty much About broke even on that but hey if you can buy something for yourself Enjoy it for a few years and sell it for what you paid for it Or a little more. That's fantastic wood ducks painting bought on shop. Goodwill For 48 dollars and 92 cents sold with one bid on ebay auction for 89 plus shipping Signed oil canvas just in hues I'll tell you what paintings not my thing. I just I They're they're tough. It's like, how do you know if it's um An actual painting or a print this one looks like it's kind of obvious But uh, yeah again the arrow with the damage depression as seen on back look at this Two drips. I love it. I love it. Who else loves the arrows and the details? Wow, I've never seen that before Tiffany studio's desk set inherited from my grandmother was in poor condition with cracked glass dents deteriorated bronze these two pieces are part of a larger piece Desk set sold within 15 minutes of listing for 184 plus shipping I messaged back and forth with the buyer to make sure that he was aware of the damage He said that he was and he buys and restores the items So this is absolutely stunning But um, again, we're going to kind of look at the details of the photos and how they showed The issues so you got all your measurements and look right here is this awesome. I love it I love it That's great You know, I mean how there's no way they're getting an item not as described. I mean it is all There all there This is a stoneware vase Signed pottery art pottery blue glaze Resist spiral leaves wheel thrown Bought and in a statesville sale for seven dollars and fifty cents and sold for 55 55 plus shipping antique italian elf daemon bird ceramic canister littered jar hand painted angel local consignment and auction house for 1250 sold for 81 plus shipping and you can see right here's the little signature Interesting, huh? It's got crazy. All right, let's look at the next one here Signed occult paperweight vintage art glass iridescent glitter ribbons two sided and it says Bought at what local washington dc consignment and auction house for 23 and sold for 64 best offer plus shipping And we can kind of take a peek at oh look how pretty the top is Oh, wow, that's awesome I love it when you can like see the color Wow great photos You guys here are examples of awesome photos if you're looking to like up your game Framed lithograph garden paris Versailles elmo gideon vintage mid-century france Bought at the goodwill in states borough georgia for five when I was visiting family and sold it for a best offer of $35 and 88 cents plus shipping so an old Uh painting right litho no it's a lithograph I remember picking something up one time and I'm like, I don't know how to tell if it's real or if it's a print and my husband's like Take a loop and like look really close and he was trying to tell me and I'm like I I can't figure this out So I know art is not my thing But there is a lot of money in art if you can figure it out Original frame cat drawing pop art signed meyer Lieberman ink colored pencil. That is really cool Bought at a local animal humane thrift for five and sold for 107 plus shipping The next item here is this uh vintage Oh keldon vase pillow blue green teal crackle glazed square porcelain Here's the bottom And here is the top Got a unique thrift same company as savers paid 12 and sold it for 75 dollars and 20 cents And the buyer paid shipping so really pretty color there All right, you guys again, that is edge city traders and go and follow their ebay store down below. It is linked Thank you guys so much for being here and thank you for watching. I appreciate it so much Um, there's going to be some videos popping up here and here a subscribe and a video down below So check those out and as always. Thanks for watching


We're Jeff and Shaunty. For the past 20 years, we've been married 29 years, and for the past 20 years, we've been engaged in kind of a career of social research, helping people understand one another, particularly men understanding women, women understanding men, and then how that plays out in our marriages and what we can do to practically thrive in those marriages. So today we're going to start with a scripture that some of you, if you're familiar with the Bible, you will have heard this before, but we're going to dive into an interesting sort of application of this today that may be a little bit eye-opening and encouraging for you all about the institution of marriage that God created. Which in our culture at this present moment is not held in as high a regard. It's not slightly skeptically. Let's just say it that way, right? So we're going to start with, if you have your Bible, if you have your app on your phone like I do, turn to Genesis 2 where we look at God inventing this and putting into place this institution of marriage. So we have seen, many of you are familiar with the creation story where God creates light, he creates the animals, he creates night and day, and he looks at all these things and says, it's good, it's good, it's good. And then we come to this curious verse in Genesis 2 verse 18, then the Lord God said, it is not good for man to be alone. It's not good for man to be alone. I'll make a helper who is just right for him. Skip over to verse 21. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the Lord God took out one of the man's ribs and closed up the opening. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib and he brought her to the man. So you have this image of a good loving father presenting a son with his wife, okay? He brought her to the man. At last the man exclaimed, this one is bone from my bone and flesh from my flesh. Our old pastor used to say that this was Adam going, hubba hubba, okay? This was like, that's kind of what that means. She will be called woman because she was taken from man. This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the two are united into one. So what we see here in that scripture is how much our God values marriage. He created the covenant of marriage. He brought a husband and a wife together so that they would live in oneness together as, as even as the New Testament when we go there, Paul says that that marriage covenant is a reflection of that relationship between Christ and the church. And so we know not everybody in here is married, not everybody watching online, not everybody in the second sanctuary. Is that what you call it? The second sanctuary? Okay. And I look forward to meeting you guys later after the service. But we know not everyone is married right now. Some of you are longing to be married. Some of you aren't sure. Some of you maybe were married before and something happened. There's all sorts of places that everybody is in. But we want to look today at something that we hope will encourage everybody about this institution that God created. So today we are going to be covering three kind of big picture points. And so the first, we're going to be talking about the big picture hope for marriage. Okay. The covenant of marriage. Number two, we're going to talk about the truth about marriages today, the state of marriage today. And third, we're going to dive in just a little bit as much as we can near the end to give some practical tools. How many of you were here at the conference this weekend? And so awesome. Thank you guys for coming and investing. And for those of you who weren't there, we're going to just download a few of those things that we talked about yesterday. Practical tools and ways that God designed our relationship to thrive. So in teasing out this first point, I think it's always helpful. I learned from kind of stories, illustrations. So let me tell you a little story. When our daughter was in middle school, she had a best friend, Meredith. And Meredith was the daughter of a woman. She was a single mom. Her name was Ellen. And Ellen was raising these three kids all on her own. And over the course of time, because our daughters were best friends, Shanti reached out to Ellen and became close with her. And they would share conversations. And over the course of time, Ellen confided in Shanti that she'd met this guy. She met this guy. And he was a great guy. Great Christian guy. And as that relationship progressed, he asked her to get married. And she was excited, thankful, but also. The kids loved him. Yeah. Like everybody loved him. It was a great thing. But she was hesitant. And she talked to Shanti and she said, look, I'm, I'm aware of the high failure rate that second marriages have. I know all of the information that's out there on that. And so as a result, I think I need to protect the kids, protect myself, even as I'm entering into this marriage. And I'm, I'm gonna have kind of a bank account on the side that he doesn't know about. Just so that if he flakes out on me, we've got options. And she said, you know, he's a wonderful guy, but just in case, just because the statistics are what the statistics are, right? Foolish not to do this is sort of the way she put it. Here's the thing when it comes to marriage and really relationships in general, but let's just deal with this covenant of marriage that God created. When it comes to marriage, we take action based on what we believe to be true. We take action based on what we believe to be true. But what if it's not true? We're going to have the wrong action and we're going to go down a road that God says not to go down because we're believing a lie from the enemy. And so here are some of the things that we hear about marriage, about this covenant, this institution that God created. We hear marriages are in trouble. We hear things are falling apart. We hear the divorce rate is rising. We see people writing about a 50% divorce rate for first marriages. Don't even get me started on the divorce rate for remarriages. We hear the rate of divorce is the same in the church. How discouraging is that, right? And we hear that marriage is complicated, that it's just hard to figure out. Marriage is just, it requires a PhD in psychotherapy and a minor in mind reading, right? Like that's kind of what we sort of are presented about this. And so we take certain actions in our marriage or as we're thinking about marriage based on those beliefs that we think are true. And so when we hear, for example, like Ellen, like our friend, she hears about the super high divorce rate for remarriages and she goes, okay, well, then I need to, you know, protect myself, have the little secret bank account on the side. Or maybe you're, you know, a young person you're going into potentially a marriage, but you're thinking, I'm not going to completely open myself up to this, not entirely. I'm not going to be completely all in because we all know that, you know, most marriages fall apart. And when you have the little bank account on the side, or you try to protect yourself and you don't open up in the way that God asks us in oneness, what happens? You're building a wall. And you're creating a lack of trust. And you're causing the problem you're trying to protect yourself from. And it's all because we are operating based on fear. We all know operating based on fear is not what our good God has for us in this good institution, this good covenant that he's created. And it's really tragic that fear is creating these problems and that the enemy is whispering or really more yelling, these things, because here's the reality. So much of what we hear is news. It is not truth. It is news. It is not true. And so there is so much good and wonderful news out there about marriage that you never hear about, but it's real. So we're going to spend the rest of our time here confronting those myths, those things that you have been told by our culture by the news, so that you have the truth and then can take the right action. And we should say, don't don't hear us saying there are no problems, right? Like, don't don't hear us saying that, you know, there aren't challenges. Of course, there are very real challenges. I know some of you who came to the marriage event yesterday were coming because there's a deep need to try to restore and redeem what is going on in your marriage. I'm not minimizing that. But the truth is the big picture truth, God has good things for his children and intends marriage to be one of those good things. And we've been doing this now for about 20 years. And we've done 12 of these nationally representative major research studies on relationships on marriage, and been able to work through and dig out some of these key things that we're going to share with you. One thing though, overarching all of it though, is we've found that you could boil it all down into whether couples thrive or survive in their marriage, or whether they really, really struggle. And that one thing is whether or not they have a sense of hope in their relationship. Because think of it, if you have hope in the future, or in, you know, what you know to be true, then in spite of whatever it is that you are going through that rough season, you go, we're going to make it. But when you lose that hope, when you, it gets replaced with kind of a sense of futility, like, what's the use? Then all of a sudden things begin to spiral down on you. I mean, think about it, right? Like this, if you're, if you start having that sense of futility, here's what often the enemy loves to do with our marriages, right? You start thinking, if the ship is going to sink anyway, why bother spending so much energy trying to bail it out, right? You start listening to the enemy going, it's better if you try to escape the wreck intact. And that sense of futility itself can be what seriously damages or kills a marriage. And the problem is, we have a culture wide feeling of futility about marriage. We have a culture wide feeling of utility about marriage, based on conventional wisdom, all those negative things that I said, that we are going to prove to you are not true. So the bottom line is we're hoping, the two of us are hoping that when you walk out of here today, you'll walk out with a sense of hope. If you're married, hope in your marriage. If you're a parent of kids who are married, that you'll have hope for their marriage and try to instill some of this good information in their lives if they're not here. And we should say, listen, there is, because I can see some of your faces and some of your kind of tents about this. There is no judgment here at all about this topic, no matter what your history is, no matter what you're walking through. And we are certainly not saying, as Jesus did not say, that you have to actually stick with like an abusive marriage, no matter what. No, right? God wants good things for his children. You should, if you are in an abusive situation, go to the pastors of the church, ask for help, ask for help, walking through that. But even then, we have seen in so many cases, our good God can restore even that. Okay. So we want to just say right up front, that as you listen to what we're going to be sharing, if you have gone through a marriage that ended and you're out the other side and you're listening to this, I want you to hear no judgment, because God does not have that for you. So let's do it. Let's start with a big picture, the state of marriage. To sort of debunk the discouraging correct myths. Okay, so this is number two. So this is, yeah, so when Shanti, she just, she used to be a syndicated columnist. And her column was published in 90 some papers across the newspapers, newspapers, those things that used to like read on paper. Yeah. So anyways, she had this, this column and it one of the particular columns that you were writing on was on something about marriage in the divorce rate. And so she being who she is this researcher, she was like, you know what, I need to figure out what is the actual divorce rate? Because, you know, I need to, I want to quote it accurately.  So she went and kind of tried to figure that out. And that led in that journey to all that we're going to tell you right now. So it culminated in this particular book right here. It's called The Good News About Marriage, where she debunks a number of these myths that we have all heard have all believed are true, but they're not. And the reason that we want to share it with as many pastors and as many followers of Christ as we possibly can is we want to equip you the next time someone says, well, you know, there's a 50% divorce rate for you to go, actually, that's not true. And to be able to be a part of changing the lie that the enemy has tried to weave in our culture to the truth. So this research, they don't believe me yet. I can tell you guys don't believe me yet. This research was really, really kind of heavy lifting on statistical analysis. So I let her do it. I wasn't necessarily involved. I was the cheerleader there. I'm a lawyer, so I went to law school, so I didn't have to do numbers. So she was the kind of person who loves to dig into numbers. So I'm going to kind of, because it's very complicated, I'm going to let her kind of explain most of it, but I'm going to serve as, so to speak, the tour guide. So I'm going to interview you and ask a few questions. Absolutely. And so hopefully we'll tease out what is needed to be here. Absolutely. And by the way, can I mention, take some notes about this in your phone?  So if you want to, if you want to remember it, put some notes in the phone. So I gave a little of the back story. Yeah. So what prompted it in addition to that? So basically, here's what happened when I was doing that column and trying to figure out what the actual divorce rate was. I went to all the normal places where you try to find vital statistics for the United States. And so I went to the Census Bureau and to the CDC. The CDC has a whole vital statistics bureau, the Bureau of Vital Statistics. So many of these places because and here's why I kept looking is because when I would look at the numbers, they didn't match the narrative at all, like anywhere close. And so I kept looking and I'm like, what, what am I seeing here? And here's where I started to get a little agitated because Jeff and I had been doing this social research for years for all of the books on men and women and happy marriages and parenting and all these things about relationships. And I started to go, hold on a second. If this idea that we have a flip the coin chance of getting divorced when we got married, if that idea is not accurate, that is a really big deal. And so I started like digging into the numbers and then honestly to I'll just be candid with you guys. When I'm talking to a secular audience about this, you know, they look at me funny when I explain why I kept going. But honestly, I felt like the Holy Spirit wouldn't let me stop. Like it was one of those like keep looking, keep looking, keep trying to figure this out. And it took eight years because it is so complicated. And I ended up, I mean, literally like I've been doing statistics and numbers for a long time, but this was hard even for someone who is experienced much less like a pastor who's trying to figure out who has like 20 minutes to try to look into whatever. And I thought this is so crucial. And I felt like the Lord wouldn't let me stop. And so eight years later, I interviewed dozens of demographers, dozens of people at places like the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Vital Statistics and just really spent all the time digging into the data and realized because it was a big deal. So, okay. So that research, again, spun out into this book where we debunk, Shaunty debunks, five of the major myths. Now, we don't have time to cover all five. We're just gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna focus on kind of three initially. Yeah. So why don't we just start with that. And since you've teed it up, what is the actual divorce rate? Okay. No, and here's the reason why this was so complicated. Okay. No one knows exactly what the divorce rate is. There is, there are so many ways that you can describe it as the percentage of marriages that are going to end. Is it the percentage of people in a room who are divorced? Is it like people of a certain age? Do you look at the divorce rates of women versus the divorce rates of men for any of those categories? Because believe it or not, they're different. Like what is, what are you calling the divorce rate? And I'll give you what I think is one of the most easily understood numbers, because I could give you like 20 different versions of this. And we covered quite a few of them in the book. The book is pretty heavy lifting if you guys want some really robust numbers. Well, can I ask a question to the congregation? How many of you, just by a show of hands, have heard that the divorce rate is 50 percent? 50 percent of marriages end in divorce.  I'm curious. Okay, so it's almost everybody. Yeah. Yeah. Not everybody. Yeah. So, so here's the one of the best numbers that I think is easy to understand. And it's kind of an order of magnitude in the right area when you look at all these other numbers. It's similar. Right now, 71 percent of people are still married to their first spouse. Okay. It gets better. It gets even better than that. Okay. 71. And this, by the way, I said right now, this is actually a few years old, the latest numbers from Census Bureau, which I haven't dug into yet, or even better than this. Okay. But a few years ago, 71 percent of people are still married to their first spouse, which means 29 percent aren't. And guess what? That 29 percent includes all the people who were married for 50 years and their spouse died. That's not the divorce rate. That is death and divorce. Those are just marriages that have ended. Okay. And because we don't keep, there's no way to keep track of every single marriage in the country. That's why we don't know what the actual rate is. But we can get closer. We know it has to be less than 29 percent because that's death and divorce. And so you can kind of look at some other factors, like there's about a 14 percent rate of widowhood. There's some other issues. And so you can kind of squint sideways and say maybe 25 percent of first marriages end and divorce. Now that is still too high. Okay. But it is a universe different from 50. And it means that if you are having trouble in your marriage or you have a friend who is having trouble in their marriage, you can come alongside that person. You can put your arm around them and you can say you are going to make it. Most people do. Okay. I like that. How in the world did we get to believing and hearing that it was 50 percent? Where did that come from? Where did that come from? So here's where that come from. And here is, by the way, I'm going to just tell you right out, there are still issues with people presenting the numbers this way even today. However, most of that comes from in 1972. You guys remember before 1972, 1972 was when no fault divorce was instituted. It used to be before then you had to go before a judge and prove that there was a reason to allow you to get divorced. In 1972, you started to be able to get divorced just because you wanted to with no fault divorce. And so all of a sudden, in 1972, the divorce rate had been going along really steady and then it started going like skyrocketing because people were rushing to get divorced and the demographers of the day started to get alarmed by this and they said, if this keeps up, we're going to hit 50 percent someday. It's a projection.  We have never hit that number anywhere close to it for society as a whole. Now some high-risk groups have hit that rate. If you get married as a teenager, for example, that's a higher risk divorce rate. For the first few years of marriage, there actually is a very high divorce rate. But that people who get married as a teenager, that's 4.7 percent of the population. That's a tiny percent. That is not the majority. We have never hit that for society as a whole. So just so you guys know, that is a projection that we've never come close to. So remember, Ellen, so you're saying that for those first-time marriages, no, we're close to 50 percent. And can I tell the other reason why we tend? Okay, so there's actually two main reasons why we believe the 50 percent narrative. One is that back in the day, they projected this and some demographers, just being candid, some demographers are still projecting that. Okay, I don't know why. I've talked to a lot of them. And a lot of them are like, well, it's just it's kind of like everybody knows this is roughly what it is. If I say it's lower, I'll lose all credibility. Okay, anyway, just don't get me started. It makes me so mad. Anyway, but the other reason why we think there's all this bad news about marriage. I hate to say it this way, but it's because, unfortunately, our news infrastructure focuses on negative news. If there, if there is a study, I saw this over and over and over. If there is a study, let's just say it's a big research study that finds 10 things about a population that they studied about the divorce rate. And let's just say eight of them are positive and two of them are negative. Guess what makes the headlines? Okay, there was a, I'll give you an example. A number of years ago there was a New York Times huge feature in the New York Times, you know, paper, the paper version, it was above the fold, like it was the main headline for the New York Times that day. And it said the headline was divorce is catching. Okay, that was the headline. Contagious. Contagious. Contagious. Thank you. Divorces contagious. There was this long-term study that started in 1941 in this town in Massachusetts called Framingham Massachusetts. Okay. And this long-term study that has been going on for all these years, the researchers would go back into the town like, you know, every 10 years, 15 years, and do another sort of look at the statistics and what's happened in health and marriages and life issues and education and all these things. And one of the things that they found, which by the way you all might be interested in, because it is true, is that if you have friends who are divorced, you're more likely to think of divorce as an option. If you have friends who not as many of your friends are divorced, you're more likely to think it's not an option. Okay, so there's sort of, that feeling is contagious. And so that's what the article was on. Buried in the article, buried in the article, was the actual divorce rate for Framingham Massachusetts. Because you can do that for like small population groups. Over the course of like 50 years. Over the course of, yeah, 50 years or whatever. Guess what the divorce rate in Framingham, Massachusetts is? 9.5% How come above the fold, how come we didn't see representative American city has a 9.5 divorce rate? So we tend to be fed the news that is the negative and miss the positive buried in the small print. Okay, so sorry. Can you tell I get exercised about this? Now back to Ellen. So that's the first marriages. Yes. That Framingham story, all of that. Yes. What about second marriages? I mean, we've really heard that it's really tough if you get remarried. Who here has heard that second marriages have like a 60% divorce rate?  Okay, so my senior researcher and I, her name is Tally Whitehead, and one of the things that we did in this study is we spent three years trying to figure out where those numbers came from. Okay, because we had seen them too. It was really funny because she would call the Census Bureau and the analysts there and she'd say, hey, you might not know me or remember me, but, and they'd say hi, Shanti, and because she called every month or two. Exactly. And so, and so I spent three years with Tally trying to locate that number and the studies that say these super high divorce rates, because I really wanted to see the methodology, right? I wanted to see how it was done. And so for three years, we traced every news report, every website where it's quoted, every book, every magazine article, and they all traced back to one of three sources, none of which actually exist. It is a pure urban legend. I'll give you my favorite example of this. So one of the things that you will see if you are trying to figure out what the remarriage divorce rate is, you will see quoted a Psychology Today article, very, very popular article, very widely quoted and widely cited, that says Dr. Jennifer Baker of the Forest Institute in Missouri found a 50%, 60%, and 72% divorce rates for first, second, and third marriages. Okay. Now Dr. Baker is widely respected, the Forest Institute is widely respected, and so I'm like, okay, so we called Dr. Baker, or actually in this first case, emailed her, and said, can we get ahold of your actual study, because I kind of wanted to see what her methodology was, like where did she get these numbers? She emailed us back, all in capital letters, and it said, that's not me, I never said that, I've been trying to get them to take my name off that website for years. Can you say enemy? Propagating lies? Is that crazy? I called the Census Bureau, because one of the three sources that was cited was this table, it's an actual table in the Census Bureau numbers from like, I want to say 2001 or something, like it's, you know, quite some time ago, but it was an actual table, and so I'm looking at the table, and I'm like, I don't see these numbers there, but now that doesn't always mean anything, like you could be like subtracting and adding and multiplying, and I'm missing it, you know?  Somebody literally just picked out a random Census Bureau table and put it on a citation as saying that there is this number, and everybody kept quoting it. Pure urban legend. Okay, continuing on our urban legends, how many... Well, can I tell what actually is the good news? Oh, sure, sure, sure, yeah, Ellen wants to know. Ellen wants to know what the good, what the remarriage divorce rate is. Again, nobody knows exactly, but we can get a lot closer. Just like 71% of people are still married to their first spouse, 65% are still married to their second spouse, and so that 35% who aren't, remember, that's not just divorce, that's death, and hey, guess what? People who marry for a second time are often getting married at older ages, and so there is a possibility that actually the divorce rate for remarriages is lower than for first marriages, because a higher percentage of that is probably death rather than divorce. I mean, it's just to think about the difference it makes for somebody like Ellen to say, oh my gosh, like I might cause a problem by having a bank account on the side instead of helping myself. This helps when I think of, you know, talking about the death and divorce. Yes. It helps because I remember Billy Graham's wife, Ruth? Was it Ruth? I think it was Billy Graham's wife. Billy Graham's wife? Okay, they're saying yes. An interviewer asked her about this question about marriage and divorce, you know, about the options, and she said, absolutely not. Divorce, never an option. Murder? Maybe. So, they had a good marriage. Yes. So the next one is we probably also heard here, a lot of us, that it really doesn't matter whether you go to church or not because the divorce rate in the church is the same as it is in the world. Yeah, who here has heard that? That the rate of divorce is the same in the church.  Sorry, I'm looking at the lights out here. Okay, so probably we have about 10, 20 percent of the people who have heard this. Just, you know, this is a common thing that is very discouraging. That, and people say that George Barna, who is a very well-respected research group, that Barna found that the rate of divorce is the same in the church. And he didn't, because he wasn't studying people in the church. Here's what George Barna was studying, and it has gotten twisted in the reports about it, and pastors have come to believe this as true, and it's not. George Barna was studying belief systems. He wasn't even trying to study people in the church. When you call people on the phone, which is what the Barna researchers would do, and they would ask kind of what's your religious belief structure? You know, are you a Christian?  Are you a Jewish? Are you a religious nun? You don't believe in anything. Are you an atheist? Those groups basically all had the same divorce rate. However, he specifically excluded whether they went to church from the analysis, because that wasn't what he was trying to study. And so I partnered with Barna, and I bought that data set, and we re-ran all those numbers. Because they had collected that information. They had collected a bit. They had collected information. It wasn't designed to collect the information, but for example, they had, was the person in church last week. They had some information like that. And so we added that factor back in. Was the person in actually a churchgoer? And here's the thing that is astounding, you guys. According to Barna, and by the way, literally every other study that's ever been done amongst actual church attenders, people who make this a part of their life, the divorce rate plummets. And it turns out it drops anywhere, depending on the study, from 25 to 50 percent or more. The latest study out of Harvard found that amongst churchgoers, the divorce rate dropped 58 percent. And the thing is, us being in church and doing what God says and being under teaching and trying to listen to the Holy Spirit, getting in small groups, being in community, God asks us to do all that, in part not just because the most important thing is our relationship with Him, but because He knows how He created us and it's protective of our marriages. And it does make such an enormous statistical difference, if you actually make your faith a part of your life, especially by being in church. And the thing is, there is, you know how I said the 50 percent divorce rate that demographers today will be all over the map on that and some are still projecting these higher divorce rates, right? Every demographer, every demographer isn't, no demographers are arguing over this one, what I just said. Every single demographer knows that it's true, that if you go to church, your divorce rate plummets, it's just that every pastor and every churchgoer doesn't know that that's true. And so that's the reason that we're trying to encourage our pastors and our church leaders. So in the last minutes that we have, can we kind of narrow this down to the personal? What are some of the things, so that was the big picture, kind of of the state of marriage, the reality. The reality should be knowing is the truth. But how about for an individual, a couple, you know, what are some of the things that matter? Well you need to tell them what your pet peeve is. Oh well, yes. I do have a pet peeve. Because, you know, and maybe I've even said it at times, but oftentimes when you hear people older married couples, or even at a wedding, like a pastor sometimes, you know, when the the pastor or someone of influence says, you know, to the young couple, marriage is hard. I mean, really? I mean, that is not the greatest advertisement for marriage. You know, things, okay, well, I guess I got to do it. You know, it's just not the way that God designed it. Now it can have complications, there can be difficulties. I think what we mean when we say marriage is hard, what we actually mean is marriage can take hard work. Yeah. Right? That marriage can be something you have to work on, but it doesn't mean it's inherently like complicated, or that it's inherently, you know, really, really difficult. So let's share a couple of those thoughts that we did over the course of yesterday. So the simple little things, one of the, I think is what we found, we did a research study on what it was that the happiest couples, the people who rated their marriages exceptionally happy and good. What is it that they did? What were their practices? What were their habits? Those were the kind of people we wanted to learn from and it was a great study, it was a lot of fun to do, and we always talk about that there is one really defining key component which is... And this, by the way, this is an example of this is a simple thing that will make a big difference. It's not super complicated, okay? And it turns out that the happiest couples believe the best of their spouse's intentions towards them, even when they're legitimately hurt. If you can get that, that is a little phrase that if you can walk out of here and just kind of write it down, write it, we had one couple that wrote it on their mirror of their bathroom. Believe the best. Believe the best about my spouse's intentions. Yeah, and just the words believe the best. Because here's what happens. It is natural when your spouse hurts your feelings, it is natural to think, oh, like, oh, they knew how that would make me feel and they said it anyway. You don't realize that what you're believing, the translation of that is he doesn't care about me. That's what that translates to, right? And or she doesn't appreciate me or whatever. And it turns out that the happiest couples, they flip that switch and they go, no, no, I know my spouse cares about me. So they must not have recognized how that would make me feel or they wouldn't have said it. They wouldn't have done it. It is amazing what happens when you, you can still be hurt, but to believe the best of their intentions. And the power that that can have is by just one of the two people practicing that, it can change the relationship and it can change your heart. There was a study that I shared yesterday that we found when we were doing this research. And the study was called The Power of Good Intentions.  And like I shared yesterday, I love college students because for like 20 bucks, they'll subject themselves to almost anything. And so in this particular study was one of those anythings.  You know, it would measure the student's heart rate, his perspiration rate, his respiration rate, blood pressure, all of those things.  On the other side of the partition was a little machine with a big red button on it. And when that red button was depressed, it sent an electric shock down that cable to that student sitting there. And then the results would, the machines, the biometric measuring devices would measure what the impact was on that student. Now here was the kicker. The student was told one of three different things about the person who they never saw behind the partition. In one case, they were told that the person yes indeed knew that pushing the button was going to deliver an electric shock, but they had also been told that by pushing that button it would help the student win money. So kind of, you know, a good intention, basically, yeah. In a second instance, they were told that the person pushing the button did it on accident. Didn't mean to do it. And then in a third instance, they were told that yes, the person knows that it's administering a shock and they think it's kind of cool. So in all three instances, the amount of voltage going down the cable, shock stuff, going through the cable was exactly the same. But what they found was that depending on what the student thought about the person behind the partition, if they thought, excuse me, if they thought that the person was pushing it on purpose for no good reason, it hurt a lot. I mean, a lot. And it registered on all of the devices. If they thought the person was doing it, but had done it on accident, it hurt less. And if they thought the person did it because they thought they were helping the student, it hurt considerably less. The shock was the same. The only difference was what that person sitting there believed about the person behind the partition. And that is what happens in our marriages when Shanti, though she never does, but if she were hypothetically to say something that hurt my feelings, if I translate that to she knows that that always stings and she said it anyway, it's going to hurt. If, on the other hand, I choose to believe what is the truth that she loves me, that if she knew how that was going to make me feel, she wouldn't have said it that way. It hurts less and I can move on much quicker. And this, just so you guys know, believing the best of our spouse, this is not wishful thinking. The numbers on, we do these big nationally representative surveys and the numbers are huge. It's something like 99.26, something, something percent of people deeply care about their spouse. By the way, even in very, very difficult relationships, we really care. Now, sadly, it's not 100%, right? There's that tiny percentage where there is sometimes an abusive situation or whatever that you need to get that extra help. But in most cases, when you choose to believe the best of your spouse's motivations, you're believing something that's true. Another little habit that these couples did. A second, the second habit. Yeah. And this one we didn't cover yesterday. No, we didn't. And I love this one because we've all kind of heard in marriage advice, don't keep score. That's a recipe for disaster. If you are keeping score, you're going to be disappointed. And the fact of the matter is, you know what? The happiest couples kept score. They just kept it differently than what I used to do because why don't you explain how they kept it? So the problem, the negative side is you keep score of what you're not getting, what your spouse isn't giving, you know, all of these kind of negative sides. Yes, that will be very destructive. Turns out the happy couples absolutely keep score of what their spouse is giving. And they keep that constantly in mind. And so because they're constantly noticing these things, there becomes this sense of gratitude that's sort of baked in to the relationship. And by the way, when I talk about the happiest couples, this includes people who became very happy, who started out in a really, really desperate place and actually became among the happiest couples. And this was an example of one of the things that they did to get them there. And just in full transparency, we weren't, we wouldn't have put ourselves 20 years ago in that highest, happiest couple quadrant. We became that. And this was one of the things. So let me just kind of tell you a little bit of some of our history. Shanti is the most organized person I've ever met in, on the planet. She carries so much here in her head. She's so handy to have around. I don't need a calendar or anything because she's got everything. She has it all perfectly organized. Mentally. Physical space is less so. And I, maybe OCD, I don't know, but I like things in order, in their place. Like his closet has shirt, shirt, shirt, shirt. Mine is like this. Yeah. So it created a fair bit of tension in our relationship and we had fights over it. And I don't know how it happened, but one day kind of coming home, you know, and it's the Holy Spirit. God did it. I think this was truly just the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit. And when our kids were relatively young and I came home and there's toys everywhere. And there's maybe dishes and mail stacked up on the, all of these sorts of things that would normally make my head want to explode. And somehow when I saw that, I was able to see that those toys everywhere were a result of two little kids that thought I was kind of cool and they were glad I was their dad. And those that mail stacked up everywhere I don't know what to do with mail. was a result of my wife who loves me and thinks I'm okay. And I used to have a perfectly neat ordered home and I was single and I was alone. And it's how you choose to look at some of these things that are occurring in your life. And that was the keeping score. I was able to do it. And it's not just like a super human thing. God just did that in my heart and life. And started, you started to keep score of the good things that I was doing. Exactly. And it honestly, it's scriptural to do this. I mean, think of it. The 103rd Psalm is the scripture there is my favorite scripture in all of the Bible. And 103rd Psalm verse two is praise the Lord, O my soul and forget not all his benefits. It is by remembering God's faithfulness in our lives, seeing how what he has done that gives us courage and hope for the future because of what we've seen in the past. And that's what we can do with our spouse. I guarantee everyone in here who's married, there are things that your spouse does that you appreciate, you enjoy, but you don't necessarily tell them about it. I would just tell you make a list mentally in your mind. Oh, even physically. Physically, yeah, of those things and tell them to yourself. Just the same way that David told the goodness of God to himself. Now we're out of time, but we just want to say, obviously this good news, this has some pretty significant implications, right? Can all of us become ambassadors for the good news of Jesus Christ? Not just that he loves us. He has saved us, but that he has good news for us here in this institution called marriage that is designed for our good and to reflect his glory. So I would just encourage all of us, let's become ambassadors for that good news. Well, and to that point, we all want to be evangelists to this world of the good news of Jesus Christ. There is a world that's looking at us, and if they see us and our relationships in particular in our marriages and in our relationships with our kids as being praiseworthy, of being something that's desirable, that right in and of itself draws people to the creator of the universe. Can we pray for the marriages in this church before we, I know that there's other things that people are going to be doing here in a minute, but I just feel led to do that. Please, start. You want to end? Okay. Lord, can we just come before you, Father, and say thank you? Can we come before you and just sit at your feet and thank you for this institution that you've created called marriage, this covenant that you established because you knew it was not good for us to be alone? Lord, whether our marriages are a source of joy every day or whether there is a stressful situation right now, Lord, we just want to say thank you, and we ask right now for healing and hope from you to be granted to all of the marriages in this church. Lord, I pray that you would send these people out in an explosion of love and joy and delight in their marriages to show a watching world that following you makes a difference. And Father, I pray for everyone who's not in that type of marriage that Shanti was just describing and but wanting to be. I pray that you would speak to those who are, have already made it, who've already come through the deep waters or the desert, that they would link arms and put their arms around these others and say, you know, I don't know what God has for you, but I know that he's good. And I know that if there's anything in me that I can help you with in this journey of relationships, you can count on me. Lord, I pray that we, as the body of Christ, would serve one another and in serving one another would serve the world. In your name we pray all these things, Jesus. Amen.


Okay, we're back. We're live. It's one o'clock rock. Here on a given Tuesday, life in the law with David Forman on the World Conservation Congress, which is so big, I can't believe it. It's getting bigger every time you look. David Forman is director of the Environmental Law Program at the William S. Richardson School of Law, U.H. Minoa. And he joins us today to talk about emerging leaders and the future of environmental law, not only here in Hawaii, but everywhere. Hi, David. Thank you for coming down. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. What's going on at the William S. Richardson School of Law in terms of environmental law? Very excited. Oh, so much to talk about. The program is doing wonderfully. We're putting out terrific students, finding wonderful placements for them out in the community. We've got all kinds of capacity that's being built. But the IUCN coming here in September is a historic event, just a week away. So a lot of preparations that are going on. Well, we're hoping there were some issues with visa permissions approvals. And so we may have a little less than we anticipated, but still a very significant Congress. And actually, some have said the most significant conservation conference in the United States since Teddy Roosevelt's 1908 White House Conference on Conservation. So very significant event. Yeah, so it's going to be huge, but it reflects something. You know, it's just it didn't happen all by itself. It's on a continuum of some kind. And I wanted to ask you to describe that continuum in the way people have gotten, the world has gotten interested in this issue. And of course, COP 21 a few months ago is part of that continuum. So where are we on the on the way to really doing things in environmental law? Yes. So we've come a long way from the origins of creating National Parks, which Teddy Roosevelt was involved in. And then post World War Two, the creation, you know, there was interest in addressing the impacts of the war. And conservation was one of those issues. And so since that point, we've gotten more and more involvement at the conservation level and getting lawyers actually involved more actively. The law school joined the IECN. We had been thinking about it before they actually came to Hawaii. But when they made the decision to come to Hawaii instead of Turkey, we thought, you know, absolutely, we've got to get this done. And some of our partners had been encouraging or encouraging us. And that was the little shove that we needed to to get involved both as voting members of the IECN. So the Environmental Law Program, our head of delegation will be Denise Antolini, my predecessor. We've got faculty members that participate individually as members of the World Commission on Environmental Law. That's one of six commissions in the IECN. And then we're also an institutional member. The law school itself is an institutional member of the Academy of Environmental Law. And we're doing all kinds of wonderful things to try to train folks. We're kind of combining, for example, the new development of the Environmental Court in Hawaii. And we've been, we've had visitors from India and Brazil and other parts of the world. We've met them right here at this table. I appreciate you for bringing them here and letting the public know about it. But we've been working with those folks. And so there were going to be initiatives discussed at this Congress involving the Environmental Court. For example, the formation of a global judicial institute for the environment, a training center for judges. One of the issues we've dealt with here is what's your enforcement capacity? How are you training the prosecutors and the judges to deal with these offenses? And the passage of the recent law, the governor signed, I think the first bill, the governor signed at the law school, allowing for alternative sentencing. So rather than finding somebody, maybe community education is the better approach. Or community service is the better approach than imposing a fine or jail time. Well, you know, it strikes me that when we when we had COP 21, we were talking about making an agreement between nation states, hopefully to be ratified by whatever legislators, legislatures were in those nation states, including Congress. And in that way to achieve global law, global law, you're coming at it here with IUCN, you're coming at it from a slightly different perspective. You're coming out from the legal side, right? And maybe from the scientific side, which is actually a better side, I think. But getting to the same place. Because if you can achieve changes in laws in various nation states, that actually has a more on the ground result, don't you think? Right, I think and one of the projects I'm most heavily involved in for the IUCN comes out of this frustration with the COP process. Long 20 years, the perceived failure of the Kyoto Protocol, some successes with the Montreal Protocol to the UN Framework Convention. COP 21 means the 21st time they have met. Exactly. And really, we haven't heard much about it. Yeah, and people were, what we got out of it was these INDCs, these nationally determined contributions that aren't binding necessarily. Although I've read some interesting analysis about the creativity that our president applied in that process in order to avoid the pitfalls of having to get Senate ratification of an agreement, phrase the agreement in a way that the executive action can accomplish. And it basically fits in with laws that have already been adopted by Congress, Clean Air Act, for example, so we can do administrative rules and other commitments that don't require the agreement of the Senate. But still, people are frustrated and don't feel like our nations have gone far enough and that they need a little bit more push, that it's not just voluntary, that it should be mandatory. And so one of my good friends, Tony Opposa, who I believe has been on the show as well. He's been right here in this room. So when he was here visiting as Dan and Maggie Noy, Distinguished Chair of Democratic Ideals, he had reflected that frustration he represents in Micronesia in the COP discussions. And he wanted to do something else. He wanted something action-forcing. And he thought, okay, well, there was this effort, the Palau Initiative, to try to get liability for harm resulting from climate change. But that meant a lot of resistance. Developed countries, United States and others didn't want to be held accountable for that harm. So the idea was, well, let's look forward. What is the responsibility under international law of states, nations, to address the effects of the global climate crisis on present and future generations? So rather than looking backward, looking forward, so we can go to the International Court of Justice and ask them to issue an advisory opinion. What is the status of the law? What are nations' requirements under the Framework Convention, under the law of the sea, and perhaps maybe more significantly under the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals by the United Nations? What I get is that international law is, you know, they say the law is a jealous mistress. International law is an elusive mistress. Sometimes you can do it and sometimes you can't. Sometimes you think you have an international agreement, but you don't. And it takes a village, it takes the whole world to sort of buy into this. And the reality is it's little by little. You've got to get people, countries, to come along on it. And the way IUC is doing it, I think, is very positive because it's grassroots almost. And if you have a lot of people in the legal establishments of those countries, in the environmental activist establishments of those countries, it will bubble up to the top. It will become a demand made on the governments of those countries. And I think that's what's happening, isn't it? Yeah, I think so for sure. And the IUCN has had some tremendous successes. The Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species, the Ramsar Convention, which protects wetlands, those all originated from the IUCN. And so the hope is that we can show, it's basically a proof of concept, right, that this could actually work. We could get and we're going to show people what it would look like. We've had students from around the world write memorials, written submissions or briefs representing regional intergovernmental organizations. It would have been too much to try to represent all the countries in the world. And we may have hit some of the obstacles that you discussed earlier. But we decided we would let, we represent intergovernmental organizations. So we have six teams coming in for this moot court workshop. We've got to talk about that in detail. I think that's fabulous. Shall we do it now or? I want to see your pictures now. Okay. Show and tell. We have some pictures and here they are. Can you describe what we're seeing? Sure. So there are many components to the law school's involvement in the IUCN. And one of those is our effort to meet the needs of folks who are not going to be paying the large amount that is required to register for the Convention. And so what we're doing is we're bringing the IUCN to the law school, right? So we're calling that IUCN at UH law. Has it occurred to you there's going to be a huge crowd at the law school that day? We hope so. We hope so. We would really enjoy people to come. Our first speaker is going to be the evening of Tuesday, August 30th. So before the convention starts, this is the deputy chair of the World Commission on Environmental Law. And so he'll be talking about the sustainable development goals that I mentioned and the rule of law. You know, precisely the question that you you had raised. So it's a nice segue. But so he will be here. We'll also have what was billed as a knowledge cafe for the convention center. But the group that's running it, our partners at Haub School of Law at Pace University in New York, they were they wanted to have something that had more interaction with the public than the knowledge cafe, which was isolated to subject matter interests among another 15 groups of folks. And so we're going to have an energy, a renewable energy focused forum. And that'll take place September 5th at the law school. So on Labor Day, for those that aren't attending our Moot Court workshop, that's 8.30 to 10.30 in the morning. You could make it to the law school after that. I think you'll have a crowd on that one. Two energies so big and getting bigger. For sure. Important to the future policy of the state. So what's this now? Okay. So this is the Moot Court workshop. So we were one of the lucky few that were accepted for a workshop out of a record 1500 applications. And so these are the partners represented on the bottom of the screen. These are the schools that I was referring to. So in our law school students will be representing the Alliance of Small Island States. We will have the Pace Law School at Haub in New York. They're representing the Arab League. Then we'll have a law school from Brazil. That's the Milton Compos Law School. They're representing the Organization of American States. The University of Cebu from the Philippines. They'll be representing ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Seoul National University in South Korea. They will be representing the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. And we've had a recent entry. We will also have somebody from Sciences Paul Renz in France representing the European Parliament. So and this woman has done a young lady has started a crowdsourcing campaign. And so I'm going to try to get information out there to help bring her from France all the way to Hawaii. Wonderful. Yes. Got to meet these people. What's this now? Okay so this is accessible to the public. This is our workshop, the Intergenerational Climate Justice Workshop. It's workshop 9695 if you're trying to search for it through the IUCN system. But you can see on the left side of the screen documents, these are the memorials or the written submissions that the students have submitted. And so we designed it rather than a moot court competition. We designed it as a collaborative presentational kind of proof of concept. And so the students submitted drafts and we got experts from around the world, subject matter experts, to give feedback and then to help the students revise. And so the students looked at that, those suggestions and now have the finished product posted. And we're going to both have the written materials which folks can use in the future, whether it's nations wanting to make arguments or other students from other schools that want to have moot court of their own and address regional issues that we didn't talk about. And we'll also record the session. We'll have a moot court session at the Hawaii Supreme Court on September 1st, 130 to 330. At the Supreme Court. Yeah and we've been really grateful to Chief Justice Mark Rectonwald for allowing us the use of the court and not only that, he will be the acting president of the International Court of Justice for this session. Perfect. Maybe he has aspirations. Well I don't know. He's certainly got the temperament for it. Yes he does. And he'll be joined by some subject matter experts. My colleague, Professor Maxine Burkett will have Professor Christina Voigt from the University of Oslo in Norway, Professor Emilie Gaillard from Sciences Po Ren in France, as well as, I'm drawing a blank right now for us. I know who it is. We can come back. Let's take a short break as a matter of fact and we'll come back and learn more about the moot court which really interests me. If you don't know about moot courts you're going to know more about moot courts in one minute. You'll see. Hey everybody, my name is David Chang and I am a new host for the show, The Art of Thinking Smart. I'm really excited to be able to share with you how to get the smart edge in life. We're going to have awesome guests in the military, business, political, non-profit world, so no matter what background you're from, we have something for you. Please join us every other Thursday at 10 a.m. at thinktechhawaii.com or on the art of thinkingsmart.com. I look forward to seeing you. Aloha, I'm Kirsten Baumgart, Turner, host of Sustainable Hawaii. Thanks for watching Think Tech this summer. We have a lot of terrific shows of great importance and I hope you'll watch my show too every Tuesday at noon as we address sustainability issues for Hawaii. They're really pertinent as the World Conservation Congress approaches in September and the World Youth Congress that's focusing on sustainability next year as well. Have a great summer and tune in at noon every Tuesday. Bingo, we're back. One o'clock rock, life in the law with David Forman, director of environmental law program at William S. Richardson School of Law, UH Manoa. We are so happy to have him here talking about emerging leaders and the future of environmental law here in Hawaii and elsewhere, especially in this incredible conference, biggest ever conference, coming to the convention center what, next week? That's right, September 1st to September 10th. They have a bunch of pre-Congress activities and post-Congress activities but the the meat of it will take place a forum all of these workshops and events September 1 to September 5 and then September 6 to September 10 will be the assembly when we'll do the business of the of the Congress and I'll talk about that a little bit later but I wanted to make sure that I added in the name of our Russian Judge Professor Irina Krasnova will be also on the panel on September 1st at the Hawaii Supreme Court. Excellent, excellent. Okay, let's talk about moot courts for a minute because, you know, to continue on the continuum, you know, you want to raise public awareness about the law, the environmental law, in the thought that if you if you can do that then people become aware that you can protect the environment through the law you just got to make good laws and you got to make them everywhere in the world to protect the planet. This is not easy but this is, in my view, the way you do it. So it's a conversation, it's a conversation leading to judges that no more, legislatures that no more, and ultimately countries that no more and it's coming up through the legal community just great. It makes the legal community more relevant than ever before. I'm presumably more likable than ever before. How about that? It's a new idea. Well, I think, you know, like a lot of legislation, you can write the, you craft the law but then there are debates about what that law actually means, right? And so there are lots of issues, international laws, treaties, conventions, other customary international law, etc. Those obligations that are binding on the international community. But people will argue about, well, what does it really mean? I mean, you had Diane Desi Eirte here talking about issues in the South China Sea. So there are debates between countries about that issue. So that's what we've set up. So in this mood court, rather than address all of the panoply of environmental laws that might bear on the question of the climate crisis, we have focused in on the sustainable development goals that the United Nations adopted at the end of 2015. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is an obvious element, but also the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. So those are the three main substantive areas that the students will be focused on. Who would have expected that the University of Hawaii School of Law, the William S. Richardson School of Law, would be a global player, an international player. That's what has happened here. Well, over the last few years, the school has emerged to be a global magnet for issues like this, and a great orbiter in international thinking. How about that? It's fantastic. We really do have a tremendous faculty. I mean, if you look at the number of faculty members at our law school that focus on international issues, it's and compare that to, in terms of faculty-student ratio, it's got to be the best in the country. It's really fantastic. It was one of the reasons that I decided to go to this law school. At the time, we had the Law of the Sea Institute here, right? So we're talking about John Van Dyke and John Craven and that group really did a tremendous amount of work. Sherry Broder is continuing that work. She was here yesterday. Yes, we're really grateful for the amount of time that she contributes to the law school, teaching our international CU's classes. But so I think that this is something that we can build upon. You know, we've got three key programs at the core programs at the law school. The Environmental Law Program is one, the Kuglia Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law is another, and we've got a very strong synergy between those two programs, but I've been pitching that we should have an equally strong synergy between our Environmental Law Program and our Pacific Asian Legal Studies Program. And so, and particularly, you know, build upon our expertise in China, Japan and Korea, but also look to Southeast Asia and the Pacific. You know, I think that's some, a way that we can really stand out compared to a lot of the other universities that already have programs in the three bigger countries in that area. We have perfectly situated. Absolutely. And it's the perfect time for us. So what does intergenerational mean in this context? Right. And so the idea is looking, basically, it's in some context, people would say it's the public trust dropped in, basically, basically. You know, like what are your obligations to the generations that have come forward? If you thought about it in indigenous terms, it's making decisions based on seven generations, right? Looking forward rather than taking, making your decisions in the short, on a short term, thinking about it in the long term. And so this builds upon some work that Tony Opposa did. There's a famous case, a minor's Opposa versus Factoron, back in 1993, the Philippine Supreme Court recognized the ability of folks to bring claims on behalf of future generations in order to stop the logging that was taking place in the Philippines. What a wonderful motion. Yeah. They were, they were going to be out of their forest, rainforests, if they hadn't taken action. So, so often we don't do that. We look only at this term of office, this political cycle. You have to do that now. Right. And so we, we thought what better idea to talk about these, these issues than have the voices of future generations present those arguments, right? So we've got some of the top law students from around the country. So that's when you say represent. Right. These law students, lawyers, whoever is speaking, they are speaking on behalf of future generations on these issues. Right. And we thought not only having those students just for the, for their own presence, but the impact on our own students to be interacting with their peers around the, around the world, we thought would be a fantastic opportunity. That's why videotaping is so important. Right. And putting it out there. Right. And so in addition to the memorials that we showed you, we showed earlier, we're going to post recordings of the, of the arguments as well. And we're hoping that people will look to it and, and simulate their own efforts. And so that way we would build consensus and support for activating, action forcing norms basically that the United Nations Framework Convention has some teeth to it. Right. And so that's what we're hoping to accomplish. So I'm one of the speakers in the, in the moot court. We're a wonderful way to connect it up with the general study of law to call it a moot court. And I am going to represent the future generations in my area, I guess. And I'm going to make arguments on their behalf. Right. And my arguments are not going to be the same, perhaps, as somebody representing another area, the future generations in that area. Give me an example. I mean, I know you don't know exactly what they're going to say, but what, what might they argue from a given area? Well, so, so somebody might say, look to a particular document. You know, there's the sustainable development goals now has a, a provision that, that looks at energy, renewable energy, for example. And so, but it's a, it's not a complex, complex, wordly worded document. And so one side might say, well, renewable energy for developing nations means one thing and, but for a developed country, it means another. Right. And so the folks from the developing side might say, well, you know, the, the developed nations have an obligation to provide support for us. Right. And that developed nations might be arguing, well, you know, that we're, we're going to continue doing what we're doing because it's the best use of our, the highest and best use of our resources and where the developing nations might say that, well, you've got to take into consideration that what you're doing is impacting us and the availability of those resources for the future. So there are resources all around the world, some of which are tied to national jurisdictions and some that are part of what you might refer to as the common heritage of mankind. And so they're competing interests about how best to use those resources. Should they go to those who have developed the technological and capacity to exploit those resources or should the benefits of that also be shared with nations that don't have that technological capacity. Wow. So they, the students who make these arguments can find policy issues everywhere. Right. And dwell on however many they wish.  Well, we're only, we've got a, we've got a limited amount of time. They could go in on for a long time. We've tried to narrow it down. So we've asked them to prepare 10 minutes and they may get interrupted by the judges and Chief Justice Recton-Wald is the president of the court will have the discretion to extend their time. So we've built that into the program and we're hoping to get some exchange and both the way the moot court is set up later, the one that's going to take place on September 5th at the Kauai Convention Center. We're going to show an edited version of that moot court that takes place at the Kauai Supreme Court and then we're going to have the students come on and share their perspectives. So they may touch on issues that weren't in the, on the video. We'll look at it with them the day before. At prey. Right. So just looking back retrospective about what we've discussed. Yeah. And then, you know, their experiences with it, then we'll have the panel international environmental jurists react, you know, their perspective on that issue. And then we'll open it up. We'll have a facilitated dialogue with the other attendees at the, at the Congress. So it'll be an active, interactive workshop. And so maybe individuals whose regions weren't represented might want, might want to talk about some of those issues and get some reactions from the, either the judges or the, or the students. Very interesting, very provocative. And it actually, there's one more step to it. Two more. Yeah. And this might lead us into the, the motions, but there is a parallel motion that has been submitted for vote. They're counting the votes right now, so we don't know whether it's passed or not. But our partners at PACE in New York has submitted a motion that asks the IUCN assembly to encourage the United Nations General Assembly to ask the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion on the sustainable development goals, which includes climate change. And so we'll use this as an opportunity to say, hey, look, this is the goal. If it passes, then we need to do a lobbying campaign to get nations within the General Assembly to vote for that request. And then it'll go to the International Court of Justice. So, you know, inherent in that process is that they will be bound right by asking for the vote and by the United Nations asking for the vote. So in a phrase though, what, what will the, what will the International Court be asked to rule on? Yeah, so the that's part of the debate, right? Tony Opposer really wants it to be focused on the climate crisis. There are others that feel that this is better phrased as one of the sustainable development goals. So it was most recently adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. And so that would be the more strategic way of addressing the question. But the question that that we are posing in our MuCourt workshop is what is the responsibility of states under international law to address the effects of the climate crisis on President Future Generations? That's a hard one. That's the elusive part. And so, but the, you know, similarly difficult questions have been asked of the ICJ before. One of the very first in international environmental law decisions was actually the Nuclear Weapons Advisory opinion. You know, so talking about the impacts of using nuclear weapons on the environment. And so there was some very strong language that came out of that decision. Also some language that made some people uncomfortable because the court wasn't prepared to set, to rule out the possibility of you using nuclear weapons in a defensive or as a deterrent. So, yeah. Yeah. Well, this is really cutting edge, isn't it? Because I mean from where this is going it could have a huge effect, maybe even a greater effect at the end of the day than COP 21 happened. Because it hasn't been ratified. Right. Yeah. The thing I wanted to ask you is so when this is over and it'll be an extended convention. Right. Congress next week and into the week after. What happens then? Is that it all finished? No. Or is the William S. Richardson School Law your program have some other plans following all of that? No, absolutely. We're going to be building on that. We're hoping that this initiative with the Moot Court takes on a life of its own, is embraced by their folks. We'll be involved with IUCN on an ongoing basis. We will be involved with the World Commission on Environmental Law and their Global Judicial Institute for an Environment. We'll be providing training. You've talked with some of the folks from India and Brazil about our environmental court being a model for the rest of the world and so we're going to we're going to work on that. There are some enforcement issues that we're exploring. Maybe we can provide some training for prosecutors and judges and other parts of the Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, for example. Lots of opportunities for our students to get involved in these issues. Whatever they come. Right. And we even have one of the first things one of my first acts when I got to the Environmental Law Program was authorizing a travel grant for one of our students to attend the IUCN Congress in Jeju and she's now doing work as an Ocean Policy Consultant while she's getting her PhD at the University of Australia but she's been involved in discussions at the United Nations, their preparatory committee meetings to flesh out the governance structure for marine areas beyond national jurisdiction. So these common resources how do we deal with bioprospecting and those kinds of questions. And so we've got some of our graduates that are working on some of these really compelling issues. Never stop, David. Never stop. Last question and you're going to look at camera one and talk to the people and tell them why they should care about all this. What does it mean to the men and the women on the street? Well I think that the ability to use the rule of law to effect your conservation goals is something that holds a lot of promise for the future. And we're looking at the students that we are teaching to provide those voices and we're looking to them to cooperate with others around the world. Sometimes you get excellent ideas from people they're facing different situations and so having this opportunity to interact with conservation leaders and international environmental lawyers from all over the world is a valuable experience not only for our students but for the community at large. Thank you David Forman director of the environmental law program at William S. Richardson School of Law University of Hawaii. By the way Think Tech cares deeply about this. We've had a number of the names in this area of legal thought on the show here and we are covering the World Conservation Congress next week like a blanket. All right. We have Anu Hiddle going down there Kirsten Turner and Cowie Lucas all three of them going to be covering it. You will see more here on Think Tech about the WCC. Thanks so much David. My pleasure Jay. Thanks for having me.