Climate Crisis

Greg Dalton, host and producer of the Climate One podcast, has been creating the podcast for nearly 15 years and is increasingly helping us connect our feelings with the climate crisis. He says he’s “dropping conversations from the head down into the heart.”

Climate One is truly a must-listen for everyone, especially now that climate change has become a central issue for society at all levels—local, national and global. It is an outstanding source of information on topics that most commercial media studiously avoid.  I appreciate Greg’s approach, the breadth of topics and guests, and how he centers human emotions in our response to the climate crisis.

Greg advises people who are having feelings about the climate crisis and wanting to do something to focus on their own social circles. Don’t try to “save the planet.” Rather, look to what you can do in your immediate environment—your home, your community, your workplace. You have more influence there, you’ll have more impact, and you’ll just feel better about the progress you can make. He says if we all do this, it will create a virtuous cycle—a social contagion—and more of us will want to act, will act, and that will encourage others to take action as well.

Find Greg Dalton here:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-dalton-a6b24/

The Climate Mobilization: https://www.climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts

#Leadership #Commitment #EmotionalIntelligence #EQ #climatechange

[Video Transcript]

Matt Schlegel:                   How are you feeling about climate change, and how are those feelings influencing your actions? Thanks for joining me in conversations with leaders who are engaging with their feelings as a leadership tool for both inspiration and motivation. I’m very excited to be speaking with Greg Dalton, host of the Climate One podcast. Greg shares how the climate crisis moves him through many different emotional spaces, and how those feelings are motivating his work. Now for the conversation. Today I’m speaking with Greg Dalton, producer and host of the Climate One podcast.

He’s been creating this podcast for over 15 years now, and I’ve been learning from Greg and his guests for most of that time. His podcast is truly a must listen for everyone, especially now that climate change has become a central issue for society at all levels, local, national and global. Greg’s podcast is an outstanding source of information on topics that most commercial media studiously avoid. I appreciate Greg’s approach, the breadth of topics and the guests, and he too centers human emotions in our response to the climate crisis. Thank you for joining me today, Greg, and welcome.

Greg Dalton:                       Thank you, Matt. It’s great to be here with you.

Matt Schlegel:                   Great. Why don’t we just start off? I’d like to ask you how you are feeling now about the climate crisis.

Greg Dalton:                       Big question, right? As many of your guests say, it’s a roller coaster. I remember asking a scientist once how he feels about climate. He said, “I’m schizophrenic. I’m some days up and down.” This week, for example, I participated or watched a online session with Joanna Macy, where there was nearly 2,000 people and people crying and sharing their climate grief at what we’ve created and guilt about their complicity, and that was really heavy and really made me really sad, really down.

Then today I read about a new solar farm in Houston that’s coming online, Mayor Turner there, and they turned a former landfill into a solar farm. Wow, good things are happening. Depending on what I’m feeling, what I’m seeing, my latest conversations I have with people, it’s up and down. It’s a beautiful day here in San Francisco. I’m healthy. I got a good night’s sleep. Okay. I also try to manage my news intake. I try not to stay … I try to not spend too much time on climate Twitter, which can be a sinkhole and a depressing, and sometimes an uplifting place.

Matt Schlegel:                   Right. Right. Yeah. Couple things. One, Twitter is a really great resource for climate information. I find that, at least on the social media platforms, it’s one of the better ones and it has a lot of the climate scientists that are posting there. But you’re right, it can be quite heavy, and so you need to be careful how much you manage that. Then the other thing that you mentioned was that the situation you were in, where you actually experienced other people crying, and it almost feels like we’re going through a grieving cycle, where you’re moving through these different feelings and emotions as we’re coming to grips with the loss that we’re dealing with, and that is the grieving process. Is that how you reckon with it as well?

Greg Dalton:                       Well, I remember a few years ago, there was a psychologist or a psychiatrist, Lise Van Susteren, and I think she coined this term, pre-traumatic stress. There’s often time your people are stressed about trauma in the past in their life, and I think this first came around scientists having trauma about things that they predicted would happen, stress before the event happens rather than stress after the event happens.

I certainly have related to that because those of us working in climate are aware for a long time until 2017 or so, the first fires that they came into urban areas in Northern California. A lot of climate impacts, for me personally and other people in California, were in the future. But the wildfires in the American West have really brought it home and directly into our bodies, into our lives, and that’s when the stress has gone from the future to now. I’ve certainly gone along that path and felt anxiety about future trauma, and try not to get too far out there.

There’s this real dichotomy, right? The reason we’re in this predicament is we haven’t thought enough about the future. We’ve been very consumed today, and at the same time, trying to get centered and be present today and not get too caught up in what sometimes called future tripping, running away. Oh my gosh, way out there in the future. You can spend so much time ruminating about this terrible future that you’re not really here now. I’ve given myself permission. For example, we had a very pretty dry, sunny winter in the Bay Area, and sometimes I’d say like, “Oh, this is bad. Look, it should be raining. Oh, do I talk to people about that?” If someone says, “Oh, isn’t this weather great?” Do I say, “Well, it should be raining in February. It shouldn’t be sunny?”

Do I down, become a downer, or do I zip it and say, “Yes, I guess it is. It’s scary and it’s beautiful?” It can be both at the same time. Right? Beauty can be dangerous. Yes, it’s nice to be sunny in the winter, and it’s also scary because it should be raining and we don’t have enough water. How to hold those contradictions and acknowledge the beauty and the fear at the same time, that’s part of what I wrestle with, navigating this is where we are.

Matt Schlegel:                   Right. I think that’s so beautifully said, and I think that’s pretty much all of us now are going to have to hold both of those things at the same time, appreciating what we’re losing while still being present and enjoying what we still have. Yeah, I think you said that very well. Thank you.

Greg Dalton:                       There can be joy and beauty even in dangerous times. [inaudible 00:06:58] people, humanity [inaudible 00:06:59] I think of often of the Cajun Navy. Whenever there’s a flooding disaster in Louisiana or somewhere, there’s people who go out and help others, and you see tremendous acts of heroism. It gives me chills thinking about these people dragging elderly women out of their homes and putting them in their boat and taking them away, because there’s not enough people, first responders, to …

The Cajun Navy, I think of as, there can be great heroism and humanity in times of suffering. We want to reduce those times of suffering, we want to work on it, and good things can still happen. We have to be careful about not just being all down, it’s bad, duh, duh. There can be to find beauty, acknowledge it and perhaps even … and value it and hold it even more dearly.

Matt Schlegel:                   Right. Right. Yeah. Really humanity at its best and behaving at its best, right? That’s really what we hope to do, is as we’re going through these feelings, is respond in a constructive, positive way, channel those into constructive positive actions. That leads me to my next question for you. How are those feelings influencing your behaviors and your direction as a leader in the climate space?

Greg Dalton:                       Well, I clearly ask more personal questions, now, of people. I’ve pledged to ask people about power and privilege after George Floyd. Ask powerful guests, “How have you reflected on your power and privilege?” Also, a lot of climate conversation and professional people, it’s a very cerebral intellectual place that we have that conversation, and I’ve dropped it more from the head down into the heart to ask even personal questions of people that I don’t know and people who often don’t share personal things that much.

I go there, I think, respectfully and delicately, and give some space for them to say, “Yeah, it’s really tough.” How do you work on this all day? What kind of resilience do you build? What kind of practice do you have? What kind of self-care do you practice? Et cetera. Because I think we’ve learned, in talking about climate for decades, that facts are important. In fact, on this Joanna Macy convening the other day, they said, “We’re here to talk about feelings, not facts.”

Facts are important and they’re limited. They’re necessary and insufficient, and so we need to have a feeling level and emotional level, a human level conversation because that’s what advertisers try to do, is create love for shampoo or whatever, right? They want you to love your shampoo or people love certain companies. That’s what a lot of advertising is trying to reach people on an emotional aspirational level. Why should wouldn’t we do that when talking about climate? Why should it be just facts and energy and kilowatt-hours and parts per million and et cetera?

We have to have that human level conversation, I think that’s more meaningful, it’s more real, it’s powerful. It’s more memorable. The cognitive scientists will say, “You might forget a fact, you remember a feeling.” There’s lots of reasons why I think it’s needed and warranted and useful to get to that level with people, even if it’s a little uncomfortable for them.

Matt Schlegel:                   Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Thank you for really starting to focus on the emotional side of it. Most of the information comes out of the scientific community, and scientists by nature often don’t prioritize emotions, and certainly the academic environment does not promote emotions. A lot of scientists, if they do display emotions, it’s somewhat discrediting for them. They have to keep a dispassionate tone just in order to maintain credibility in spite of the fact that they might be feeling like getting up on top of the rooftop and shouting as loud as they can, “This is an emergency.”

Greg Dalton:                       Yeah. Think about that. That’s reason and facts that prevail. Well, we’re not, well, as behavioral economists have shown. We’re not rational creatures that we were taught in college, the classical rational economic man optimizing personal utility. That’s not the way humans are, and behavioral economists have won Nobel Prizes pointing that out.

The idea that we should separate emotions from facts, et cetera, I think that’s part of what’s gotten us to this place actually, is that disassociation, that connection. Scientists, you’re right, they report the facts, not to be emotional. That’s dismissive, that’s feminine. They don’t want be that.

Matt Schlegel:                   Right. Exactly. Yeah. Well, what advice would you give to people who are now starting to have those feelings, and specifically, how would you suggest they act on those feelings? This is for people who want to act, want to take some kind of leadership role. They may be in a leadership role now, or they’re aspiring to be a leader. What advice would you give for them?

Greg Dalton:                       Yeah. I had a conversation with a couple of college students recently who looked at me and said, “What do we do?” I said, “Well, the first thing is get rid of this you have to save the world or save the planet.” I think that that layer of, and that phrase even, is damaging and is burdensome, and the idea that … Because if you measure that, any individual action is not going to save the world. Just let’s get over that right now.

I interview very powerful people who are running large corporations, running the US Navy, they all feel inadequate to this, right? How’s a regular person’s supposed to feel? First is get rid of that save the planet, does it matter in the grand scheme of things. Just put away with that. The hubris of that, think about it, and think about … I said to them, “Well, you can’t save the world or the planet, but you can shape your world. You can shape the world around you. Your relationships, your community, your employer, your club, your family.”

It’s the old think globally act locally thing, and think about what relationships you have and start there and make an impact. Because I think there, you’ll be able to see some tangible impacts that will keep you going, because if you try to decarbonize California or the United States, good luck with that. But we have to … We need everybody moving in directions.

I just come to this much more decentralized, look around where you are, your town council, your school board, your employer, inside your company, et cetera, and focus there because I think that’s going to be more sustainable, more measurable. You’ll get more feedback for your ability to celebrate your small wins that you achieve along the way. If we all focus on Congress, we’re all going to be depressed and not get it anywhere. Right?

I think there’s a lot of misplaced. Congress is important and a lot of time and effort has been spent over the last decades from Waxman-Markey, now to Build Back Better, it hasn’t delivered for us. A lot of local great things are happening. As I mentioned, the solar farm in Houston. Cities decarbonizing, et cetera. This global issue, I think it’s got us focused globally and I think we need to focus a little more closer to home with ourselves inward, the inward journey and what’s around us.

Matt Schlegel:                   Right, right. That is such great advice. We have so much more influence in our immediate circles than we do over the president of the United States, right? We can start to decarbonize our lifestyles and then help our friends and family decarbonize theirs, and then help our community decarbonize theirs, right?

Greg Dalton:                       Yeah. Right.

Matt Schlegel:                   It’s measurable and you get the feedback just like you said, and you can make an impact. If everybody started doing that, imagine what we could accomplish and-

Greg Dalton:                       There’s a social contagion, right?

Matt Schlegel:                   Right.

Greg Dalton:                       People see solar panels, they see electric cars. There’s a real spreading effect, and that leads to movements, and that does trickle up. Yeah.

Matt Schlegel:                   Yeah. Exactly. Because politicians aren’t leaders, really. They’re followers. They’re following their constituents, what their constituents want. If we all start decarbonizing our lives, the politicians will follow and say, “Hey, you know what? We should start to decarbonize everything.” Great. Yeah, that is such great advice. Thank you so much, Greg, and thank you for all of the work and contributions you’ve been making to this space.

I am so appreciative of everything you’re doing and your journey. I feel like just listening to you. I’ve been riding along with you on this journey. It’s just such a delight to speak with you, and thank you so much for everything and thanks for being on the show today.

Greg Dalton:                       That’s been a pleasure, and thanks for what you’re doing and it takes all of us. I really appreciate in this conversation, Matt. Thank you.

Matt Schlegel:                   Thank you. Thanks for watching. Having listened to Greg on the Climate One podcast over the years, I’ve noticed how his tone has changed. As he puts it, he’s dropped his conversations from the head down into the heart. I love how Greg is teaching us to connect our feelings with the climate crisis. Also, he says that people who are having feelings and wanting to do something, should focus on their own social circles. Don’t try to save the planet. Rather, look to what you can do in your immediate environment, your home, your community, your workplace.

You have more influence there, you’ll have more impact there, you’ll be able to see the progress that you’re making. He says, if we all do that, it creates a virtuous cycle, a social contagion, and as more of us want to act, we will act and that will cause and encourage others to do so as well. If you found this conversation helpful, please click on the thumbs up button and subscribe to the channel to get notifications of future episodes. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comment section and I’ll respond as soon as I can. Thanks again.

 

Enneagram Type 7 leaders are challenged when having to deal with negative situations and emotions.  Mariyah Jahangiri is a Type 7 leader who works with teams in trauma-informed spaces.  She has learned that to be effective in her leadership role, she must make space for conversations about feelings. She says, “society doesn’t curate a safe environment for emotions and feelings.”  Mariyah has overcome both her own Type 7 instincts and society’s emotional avoidance to tap into feelings that she uses to bond the team and motivate them to get to action and get things done.

Mariyah is Network Organizer for Climate Mobilization, an organization that provides policy toolkits and trainings to catalyze nationwide climate justice campaigns fighting for zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and for a livable future for everyone. She also works with the Asian Pacific Environmental Network to build a presence in the Los Angeles area. This organization supports outreach to low-income Asian immigrant communities adversely impacted by fossil fuel operations.

Mariyah works to strike the right balance between engaging with emotions in her community while keeping focused on goals and taking action to meet those goals. We have a lot to learn from Mariyah and her insightful leadership.

 

Find Mariyah Jahangiri here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariyah-jahangiri-2313ba156/

The Climate Mobilization: https://www.theclimatemobilization.org/

 

#Leadership #Commitment #EmotionalIntelligence #EQ #climatechange

 

[Video Transcript]

Matt Schlegel:

Thanks for joining me in conversations with leaders who are using the Enneagram as a leadership tool and a tool for her personal growth and development. Joining me today is Mariyah Jahangiri, a community organizer focused on issues related to the climate crisis. She’s an Enneagram Type Seven and shares how she uses the engram as a tool for self-awareness. And now for the conversation.

Matt Schlegel:

Today, I’m speaking with Mariyah Jahangiri, network organizer for Climate Mobilization, an organization that provides policy toolkits and trainings to catalyze nationwide climate justice campaigns, fighting for zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and for a livable future for everyone. She’s also working with the Asian Pacific Environmental Network to build a presence in the Los Angeles Area. This organization supports outreach to low income Asian immigrant communities adversely impacted by fossil fuel operations. Mariyah, thank you so much for joining me today and thank you for all the terrific work you’re doing.

Mariyah Jahangiri:

Yeah, thank you for having me, Matt.

Matt Schlegel:

Great. Well, thank you. So let’s start off and I’d just like to check in with you, how are you feeling now about climate change?

Mariyah Jahangiri:

Yeah, I think my feelings around climate change can be very much tied to my relationship to my feelings generally. Just like anyone else, I think like the world, society doesn’t create necessarily safe environment for emotions and feelings and everyone [inaudible 00:01:40] different degrees with their lived experience has relationship to like trauma and emotions. And so like for me personally growing up in a kind of not so safe environment I was kind of used to turning off my emotions generally, and so I kind of pin that as kind of an origin of being on the autism spectrum. Where my relationship to my emotions is a little bit detached and I’m not really sure exactly what my emotions are. And I’ve honestly always used that to my advantage, to lean into my Enneagram seven kind of vibe of like always being able to look on the positive side, being very scared of negative emotions and that kind of barrier to emotions has helped me like be detached in spaces, especially like organizing where there’s a lot of trauma informed work happening.

Mariyah Jahangiri:

So it’s definitely helped in terms of deescalating triggers and just like working in a space like climate organizing, which is so heavy and yeah, it’s just really sad. And so I feel like it’s been really helpful, my kind of detached to my emotions, my ability to kind of put away negative emotions. But I’m definitely recently working to challenge that because I’m realizing just like people say the Enneagram Seven that your healing can only happen if you kind of work through what’s actually real in front of you. I definitely feel that way about climate too, it’s very sad reality that we’re living in, but it’s worth processing and being aware of, and also being aware of how it affects everyone else, mental health too.

Matt Schlegel:

Right. Right.

Mariyah Jahangiri:

Yeah. As I’m kind of working through my own relationship to my emotions I feel like my emotional relationship to climate organizing is also evolving, and even though it’s becoming challenging in some ways there’s a lot more awareness of just the sadness that exists. There’s also a level of healing that happens when you’re more connected to your emotions. And so being in spaces where people care about the same issues as me, are very politically aligned, and even if it’s not structurally possible in the way that we want and create like small openings of like community and social justice and care for each other, it’s definitely been also very healing to be part of those communities too.

Matt Schlegel:

Right. Wow. That so beautifully said. It has always occurred to me that having more Enneagram Type Sevens in the climate movement would be so helpful because you bring an energy that just brings people together and networks and that’s exactly what you’re doing. But Type Sevens also tend to shun negative emotions. And the climate movement is inherently fraught with a lot of processing negative emotions. I think it pushes a lot of Sevens away in general, unfortunately because we need more of them. And yet your gift is that have this ability to compartmentalize and still engage with everyone as that Type Seven and bringing that Type Seven energy without letting those negative emotions turn you away from what we need to do. So you are the perfect person for this, thank you. You have found your perfect role in the world.

Mariyah Jahangiri:

Yeah.

Matt Schlegel:

So, tell me those feelings that you are having now, how are they informing your behaviors and your direction as a leader?

Mariyah Jahangiri:

Yeah. Well kind of, I guess, following up to what you were saying as in terms of that Type Seven leadership. I think also not just like being kind of averse to processing negative emotions, but also being very problem solve-y in a very quick way is definitely one skill that I think I have, which I bring to my leadership. I think that’s really helped me be a leader. Like for example, as a network organizer constantly just being able to problem solve and be very quick on my feet. So I think that has helped, but I think it’s also been, I think, a pitfall also, if that is kind of expecting others to be on the same rate of putting aside their emotions to do work. I think in my earlier organizing as a leader, I don’t think I was as effective because I wasn’t able to see past that as much and kind of was expecting people to be on the same da, da, da, like get it done, problem solve. Let’s just move along constantly and also not making as much space for emotions, honestly, in my organizing and not really understanding why other people wanted to.

Mariyah Jahangiri:

That was kind of a few years ago, since I’ve been organizing for like six years now. So now recently I think the most kind of healing spaces that I’ve been in have been once that recognize the importance of healing in organizing spaces. And so I’m definitely trying to bring more of that into my leadership. And just like any spaces that I’m facilitating, be more aware of the feeling that others are having, make space for that and connect those feelings to why people are drawn to organizing. Because I honestly think like the core of why people organize is a desire to be in community and desire to heal. And so if you can tap into that, then I think you can be like really [inaudible 00:08:06]-

Matt Schlegel:

Right. And all of that is really feeling based, right? So, that is some great advice and it’s just remarkable your journey of self discovery. And self-awareness brought you to that point of recognizing how important feelings play. It’s like the glue that brings us all together around a common cause. Yeah, that’s great. That is great. You found that as you engage with people’s emotions, they do tend to engage with more enthusiasm, is that what you’re finding?

Mariyah Jahangiri:

I think so. I think there’s a balance that I’m trying to kind of tread around engaging people’s emotions, but then also like moving along processes. Just given that the critical decade of organizing that we’re in, at the same time they’re working on a slow timeline, we’re also working on a very intense timeline. So I think that’s the biggest thing around if we do slow down, I think sometimes I find myself kind of questioning like the slowing down itself and like how much to slow down. Especially in leadership, how much do you facilitate that. Especially with my own relationship with emotions and being a seven and trying to move past that, how much do I lean into each of those sides? Or how much do I like say no, like let’s put this processing aside and let’s do some other work. Right, right. So I don’t know. Yeah. I think it’s just a balance that I’m trying to figure out.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, now what advice would you give to leaders and aspiring leaders who are starting to have their own feelings about climate? From your perspective, from the perspective of a Seven or just in general?

Mariyah Jahangiri:

Yeah. I would say I think the one thing I’m really noticing is that I actually meet a lot of people who have feelings about climate change. Like, most people that I meet, especially my age, I think it’s like one of the most, I don’t know, significant things affecting the whole like generation Z. So it’s kind of hard to be a young person and not have emotions around climate change, which makes sense. But I do think like most of those people aren’t organizers or aren’t necessarily taking action on those feelings. So I definitely get confused between the gap between having such strong feelings around it, sadness around it, but then not being tapped into like community spaces that can like help with processing that and healing that and being with people who are very aligned. Instead of kind of like suppressing it, or just like kind of being apathetic because there’s no way to solve climate change.

Mariyah Jahangiri:

That definitely makes sense to me, that apathy makes sense. I think it’s like a defining characteristic of Gen Z, honestly, to be a little bit apathetic because of just not believing that things are going to change, which is honestly super valid. But I do think that kind of stunts your emotional growth as a person. So even if you don’t think something is going to change, like kind of putting that aside and suppressing it or being like, yeah, I don’t care, or I don’t want to be in community people, it’s not going to help you kind of heal or process or grow from those emotions.

Mariyah Jahangiri:

So I guess my advice would be even if you don’t believe in the power of organizing or like structural wins around climate change, still making sure you set aside time for that processing to be in community with people who are aligned with you and to make those like small pockets of change that you can locally. I think it just brings a certain amount of joy and healing that I think would be really good for most people.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah. Yeah. That’s so well said. It’s carrying around the climate reality while you’re living a lifestyle with people around you that don’t seem to care, it kind of creates this cognitive dissonance that starts to weigh on you. And I think you rightly point out that the best way to overcome that is start to move into communities that are aligned with your values and are starting to take actions so that it satisfies both of those outlets. Not only are you now aligned with people with your values, you’re doing something about it. And it’s, like you said, very healing, very healing.

Mariyah Jahangiri:

Exactly.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah. Well, thank you so much. And I just so appreciate all the work you’re doing and all your organizing and leadership and your remarkable insights and self-awareness as a leader is just such a delight to talk to you. I hope that we can continue the conversation in the future as you progress and you learn more about what’s working well, and what’s not in your organizing efforts. So thanks again.

Mariyah Jahangiri:

Yeah. Thank you so much.

Matt Schlegel:

Thanks for watching. Wow. I really loved how Mariyah explains so well, her ability to engage in the emotionally fraught climate movement. While Type Sevens tend to steer clear of emotionally challenging work, Mariyah has a gift that allows her to compartmentalize those emotions and bring her wonderful Type Seven energy to developing active caring communities. She also strikes a balance of making space for emotions while still actively problem solving, getting to action and getting stuff done.

Matt Schlegel:

If you found this conversation helpful, please click on the thumbs up button and subscribe to the channel to get notifications of future episodes. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section and I’ll respond as soon as I can. Thanks again.

Dario Presezzi, co-founder and CEO of Biotechforce Corporation, started having very strong feelings about climate change about 5 years after starting his firm.  Realizing the importance of his company’s role in helping solve the carbon sequestration problem impassioned him just that much more to make his firm successful.  He shares with us his desperation-to-joy emotional rollercoaster journey.

Find Dario Presezzi here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dariopresezzi/

The Bioforcetech Corporation: https://www.bioforcetech.com/

#Leadership #Commitment #EmotionalIntelligence #EQ #climatechange

[Video Transcript]

Matt Schlegel:                   How are you feeling about climate change and how are those feelings influencing your actions? Thanks for joining me in conversations with leaders who are engaging with their feelings as a leadership tool for both inspiration and motivation. Today I’m speaking with Dario Presezzi, founder of Bioforcetech Corporation. Dario started the company with sustainability in mind and realized along the way what a valuable contribution he could make to solving the climate crisis. You will love his story, and now for the conversation.

Today I’m speaking with Dario Presezzi, CEO of Bioforcetech corporation. Dario’s mission is to reduce carbon emissions in the human waste cycle. Yes, we’re talking about lowering emissions and sequestering carbon from city sewage. Dario has been on this mission for nearly 10 years now and has made remarkable progress leading to a number of fascinating, innovative products. I’m eager to hear his story about how he came to pursue this important piece of the climate puzzle. Dario, thank you so much for joining me today, welcome.

Dario Presezzi:                  Hi, Matt, yeah, thank you for having me here.

Matt Schlegel:                   Yeah, I’m just delighted to be talking to you about this. I want to just start off and touch base and find out how you’re feeling about climate change now. You’ve been in this space for 10 years, but how are you feeling now?

Dario Presezzi:                  I have, but I also have just happened to be in it. One way it’s because like when we started, we were more like a sustainability problem. How do we deal with waste and why are we throwing away when there’s a lot of resources in it. Then during the process, because that was 10 years ago and the climate problem was definitely there but not as much as now, so I ended up in it. That was about halfway through the journey when we found out that when we created this process to be sustainable waste management, we were also sequestering carbon and then the climate change situation got more and more intense. Started to feeling a lot of feelings about climate change because of that, because we were into the world, and then found out that our mission is more towards helping the climate crisis rather than just a waste management issue.

Matt Schlegel:                   Right. It was just kind of serendipitous that you happened to be in that space, so you actually had those feelings start to come in even after you were already kind of working on it.

Dario Presezzi:                  Yes.

Matt Schlegel:                   If I may, I know a lot of people cycle through a number of different emotions and feelings as they’re going through this, what are some of the experiences, like specific feelings, that you’ve had and how you’ve managed to process those?

Dario Presezzi:                  Yeah. Definitely rollercoaster of emotions is 100% accurate on this type of feelings for climate change. It goes from little like almost desperation and want to give up because you’re working so much on problems, only if there is a lot of people that don’t care. That’s what I see, when there’s a lot of people that don’t care, but you’re working so hard towards it, especially trying to educate them, but then you have doors slam in your face because they don’t feel the same thing. Even though you know it’s very real, it’s very happening and the work that we are doing is very important, that’s where you feel bad.

Then when there’s a lot of people around you or people you work with that want to take real action, they know what the solutions are and they’re very passionate about it, then you feel much better. It goes from complete opposites, where we can really do it because human beings are so resilient, we’re geniuses. We used it in a wrong way, let’s use it in the right way now. Yeah, it’s a rollercoaster that goes everywhere, but it depends on the night, let’s say. In the last period, especially the last few months, it’s been so much better, because of [inaudible 00:04:20] and everybody working on it.

Matt Schlegel:                   Yeah. It sounds like it goes, I like the words you use, from desperation to joy, depending on the day almost. That’s almost sounds like a startup, any startup.

Dario Presezzi:                  It does look like any startup, it just adds, other than the financial problem where usually a CEO it’s like, oh my responsibility is only to make money. It changed quite a bit, because I have the responsibilities to make money obviously to make my service successful, but if we don’t have a great impact in solving this problem, then we’re also failing. There’s like two standards that we need to meet.

Matt Schlegel:                   Right, oh, that is brilliant. It really is, it’s almost like an emotion amplifier on top of already hyper charged environment of being in a startup. How are your feelings about climate, then, influencing your direction as a leader now?

Dario Presezzi:                  Likely, in my company, there’s everybody that is working at Bioforcetech has passion for solving the climate crisis. It’s much easier for me, because as soon as you keep this vision on, then everybody in the company keep it on with you and help us to bring it forward. For everybody else, what I’ve seen is, since there’s the financial situation and the climate situation, as long as we keep working towards our goal without compromises, I think that’s the leading lights that we can give. My team always work with that vision and we never, again, get compromises even if it can give us more money to grow. That’s something that I think is an important lesson for everybody else.

It’s like there’s easy way to make money and then creating issues, we’re trying to solving issues by also making money. Point is, keep resilient and keep going towards our goals of sustainability without looking at what’s happening around. That’s what we’ve seen being, we don’t really go out and try to make speeches about climate change. But we know what our problem is and we said we are going to solve it 100%, with all these goals and sustainability goals and no matter what. I think that inspired so many other in our industry to then do the same, because they see it’s kind of working it’s, leading to real change.

Matt Schlegel:                   Just a couple questions there. I think that’s great that your team is so passionate about solving the climate crisis. Now, when you are recruiting team members, are you specifically looking for that or is it the opposite, people passionate about solving the climate crisis are just coming to you?

Dario Presezzi:                  They’re usually coming to us, at the same time there’s a lot of people also that want to apply for job positions that don’t really care about it and it’s kind of a priority for us. If you don’t have that passion, you’re going to have such a hard time working at our company. Because it’s harder to raise a startup, and again, because it’s hard because there’s multiple goals. We have a lot of, like every startup, you have so many doors slam in your face, if you can’t take all those punches, there’s no way you can get through it if you don’t really have the cause in your heart.

Matt Schlegel:                   Right, the greater purpose and the greater mission to kind of get you through.

Dario Presezzi:                  Yeah, it needs to be there.

Matt Schlegel:                   Right, right, yeah, that’s great. The other thing is, you were just well positioned to essentially become a company focused on solving the climate crisis, even though that wasn’t necessarily how you started. Do you see that maybe happening with other companies as well, that they will end up realizing that, we can be a part of the solution and we can kind of shift our mission and our purpose and our focus towards solving that, as seamlessly as you’ve seemed to have done?

Dario Presezzi:                  I think other than a few example that might be a little bit impossible for them to do it, but I would say 99% of the companies today that’s, yeah, it’s true.

Matt Schlegel:                   They could do that, right?

Dario Presezzi:                  I could make shoes in a way like the least expensive, their more cool, and to sell them it’s the highest price, that’s what it was before. If I’m making shoes now and I’m like, wait, but if I use a rubber that it’s made from a sustainable source and I do that and I combine all this together, actually my shoes could be a solution for. That’s one and then tables and then building houses and so on and so on, so every company needs to be part of the solution. It’s not really a question of if they should do it, they need to do it, but also they all have the opportunity to become a company to do that. Specifically, maybe drew down carbons, but other company could save 90% of carbon or energy there or using sustainable practices.

Matt Schlegel:                   And then use their influence to help others also do that, both their clients, their supply chain, and pure companies in their industry group.

Dario Presezzi:                  Yeah, I have another quick example, I open a pizza company in Palo Alto, completely separated it. Concept is when we’re making packaging we went in supermarkets, and every single supermarket have every single packaging we could find, it was 100% plastic. We were very confused, because I want to make a sustainable package for pizza, it was a journey of about eight months just to find a way to make it available for the market that can be placed in a supermarket safely, but be sustainable, it was hard. Now we have a compostable tray that can be put in the oven with compostable film on top of it so it keeps fresh and everything, but it is completely compostable. It’s something that if we do it as the little pizza company, then the other company around will be like, wait, so there is a solution for that we can actually do.

Matt Schlegel:                   Please tell me, what’s the name of your pizza, because I want to go out and get some.

Dario Presezzi:                  It’s called Pizzone.

Matt Schlegel:                   Pizzone, okay, all right. I love that, sustainable pizza.

Dario Presezzi:                  Yeah, exactly. It’s just one example, like who would think that a pizza company could make a difference.

Matt Schlegel:                   Right, because it’s mind boggling how much plastic goes through the food system, and I am so glad you’re thinking about that and thinking about setting an example for sustainable packaging as well, thank you so much for doing that. I want to ask you what advice would you give to leaders and aspiring leaders who are, themselves, starting to have feelings about the climate?

Dario Presezzi:                  One thing that I’ve seen when you talk about climate with people is even if they want to do something and they understand the problem, and we’re still talking about maybe a small percentage, but even if you’re there, it’s hard to know what to do. Because they say, if I recycle I’m fine, that kind of stuff. I would say, just look at all the nice projects that are out there, pick what is closer to you, maybe in the field that you work with or a new job that you’re inspiring to, and just follow those leaders as much as possible, like give as much support that you can to that. Then once you’re in the sustainable world, then you can understand if you have some other inputs that you can give and stuff like that.

But it is a battle, it is a challenge, and humans love challenges, so we should take it on. Once you realize that it’s very real and we need to do it, and I think more and more people realize that, then there’s just so many things you can do about it, it’s just unlimited. Pick whatever you are most passionate about, like it was before and that you make money out of it, here you can make money and also solve the problem. That’s what I would say, just pick some somebody or some cause that’s the most passionate to you and there’s for sure sustainability issues in there.

Matt Schlegel:                   Yeah, essentially follow your heart.

Dario Presezzi:                  Follow your heart.

Matt Schlegel:                   Follow your heart. That is such great advice, Dario. Well, thank you so much for sharing your experiences and your feelings about climate and your stories. Of course I wish you the best success with your company, and I hope that you can come back in the future and share more about your journey through this climate space, navigating it both the financial side, but also that emotional side.

Dario Presezzi:                  Yeah, it would be my pleasure.

Matt Schlegel:                   Okay, thank you so much. Thanks for watching, I found it fascinating how Dario started to have stronger feelings about the climate crisis five years after he started his company and how his feelings just impassioned him all that much more to make his company successful. For aspiring leaders, Dario suggests that you can pick a company focusing on solving the climate crisis, and as you go through that emotional roller coaster of the climate change, you will be in a great position to channel those emotions into healthy action that will move us forward to a more sustainable world. If you found this conversation helpful, please click on the thumbs up button and subscribe to the channel to get notifications on future episodes. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comment section and I’ll respond as soon as I can. Thanks again.

 

Stephan Crawford is founder and executive producer at The ClimateMusic Project where he uses music to communicate the urgency of the climate crisis. Stephan has a fascinating background in international affairs and had a 20-year career with the US Dept. of Commerce supporting US clean energy companies around world.  Already aware of the climate crisis, his attention has now turned to his other passion, music. As executive producer at The ClimateMusic Project, he collaborates with professionals in the sciences, arts and technology, and uses music to communicate the severity of the climate crisis and the need for urgent action.  Music is such a powerful form of communication as it allows you to connect directly with people’s feelings.

Find Stephan Crawford here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephan-crawford-948598/

The Climate Music Project: https://climatemusic.org/

#Leadership #Commitment #EmotionalIntelligence #EQ #climatechange #music

[Video Transcript]

Matt Schlegel:                   How are you feeling about climate change and how are those feelings influencing your behaviors? Thanks for joining me in conversations with leaders who are engaging with their feelings as a leadership tool for both inspiration and motivation. Today, I’m speaking with Stephan Crawford, founder and executive producer at the ClimateMusic Project which uses music to communicate the urgency of the climate crisis. And now for the conversation…

My guest is Stephan Crawford. Stephan has a fascinating background in International Affairs and had a 20 year career with the US Department of Commerce supporting US Clean Energy companies around the world. Already aware of the climate crisis, his attention has now turned towards his other passion, music. He is the founder and executive producer at the ClimateMusic Project which in collaboration with professionals in the Sciences, Arts and Technology uses music to communicate the severity of the climate crisis and the need for urgent action. Music is such a powerful form of communication as it allows you to connect directly with people’s feelings. I’m so excited for the conversation. Thank you, Stephan, for joining me today.

Stephan Crawford:          Thank you for the invitation. I’m pleased to be here.

Matt Schlegel:                   Yeah. So why don’t we just start off and I’d just like to know how you are feeling about climate change now?

Stephan Crawford:          So many emotions and yet also somewhat numb. I did my very first or I participated in my very first climate event in 1988 so that’s a long time. And I mean, I think the emotions started then and I’ve gotten to the point though where the emotions are there but I can’t let them overwhelm… At least in terms feeling of sorrow or a feeling of loss or despair, I have to put those in the background in order to even just every day to be able to function. So in a way it’s controlling emotions but I think the other thing I should mention is that my generation, I think you probably, will also remember this. We grew up also at a time when there was another issue which was the threat of instantaneous nuclear annihilation growing up. That was also an emotional hit so I think our generation has been, I think, conditioned to having to deal with really difficult emotions on a constant basis.

Matt Schlegel:                   Right. Well, so it’s really interesting how you brought up sorrow and grief. Do you find that those are the main underlying motivations? I know all of us probably, cycle through anger, anxiety, grief but it sounds like your starting point is more in that sense of loss.

Stephan Crawford:          Yeah. I mean, I think you start with what you love, right? I mean, what the motive force for me is the fact that I think that I love life. I love this planet we’re living on, I love the individuals in my life. And the thought of losing any of that of course, does immediately bring up a sense of despair, loss and sorrow. But again, as I said, that those can be very debilitating if you let them be debilitating and so for me over all these years now, I’ve just become very good at compartmentalize those emotions and keeping them in a box somewhere in my subconscious. And the other emotions that are the more driving emotions like anger and I think just a sense of frustration are the ones that actually, keep me going on a day to day basis.

Matt Schlegel:                   Right. Oh, that’s fascinating. Thank you for sharing that. And that leads me into my next question then, how are your feelings influencing your behaviors and direction as a leader today?

Stephan Crawford:          Well, I think they’re what keep me going, they’re the motive force. It’s why I’m doing what I’m doing. I think that we live at a time when we could be preserving this Eden that we share with the rest of life because we have the knowledge to do so we have all the tools we need to do so and yet we are not choosing to do so which for me is just absolutely, almost unbelievable. And I think the motive emotions for me right now is just a very strong desire to combat human stupidity and small mindedness in all of its forms to really get us onto a plane where we can really appreciate what we have been given and work to preserve it and to cherish it which we’re certainly, not doing in our current system, that’s for sure.

Matt Schlegel:                   And I’m getting the sense it’s that people haven’t come to that same sense of feeling the problem like you have. And so how are you finding that your music is able to connect the climate problem with people’s feelings?

Stephan Crawford:          Yeah. I come from a fairly privileged background, I have to admit that. I mean, that is something with the case. And so I’ve had the opportunity to have taken aa graduate degree in Environmental Sciences for example, and have had the opportunity to meet people and to talk about the issue and to have it very present in my life because I’ve had the space in my life for it. I haven’t had to work two or three jobs. That’s a really important factor and I think our society has gotten to a point where most people are struggling. At least most people I know are struggling outside of my immediate circle. And so it’s not hard to understand why people are not able to internalize the problem and really fully become aware of where we are, it’s because there’s so many distractions right now.

And then also it’s scary. It’s scary at the same time, it’s abstract and so I think that our society’s in a point where it’s almost like a perfect storm against awareness and against action because there’s so many things that can actually get people off rail when it comes down to trying to learn about it and even… And then once you know about it trying to act. So I think music is something though that is very primitive in us, it’s very visceral in us, it’s very intuitive in us. And I think it’s something that, because so many people connect with it, not everybody but most people do connect with music that it is an important vehicle, a very powerful vehicle to begin the process of driving that awareness and new insight that can lead to opening hearts and through open hearts, open minds.

Matt Schlegel:                   Yeah. That is so important and I think you described the situation that we’re in so well. Where we’re also busy in our day to day working in the system that it’s hard to pop out and just think about working on the system. And we’re not going to get people to do that unless we connect with their hearts. And like you said, music is just one of the most powerful forms of communication for doing that. So thank you so much for this absolutely, important work that you’re doing.

Stephan Crawford:          It’s been a gift, actually.

Matt Schlegel:                   Yeah. And I expect that as you succeed in what you are doing, more people are going to be having feelings about the climate and then as they come into those feelings and they’re motivated in their various ways what advice would you give to leaders and aspiring leaders that are having these feelings? What advice would you give them now?

Stephan Crawford:          Well, one of the things I want to just say parenthetically perhaps, is that I think what’s really important is to have… Even for those people who think they know a lot about the issue and I include myself in that, to have some humility and to really understand that we all need to keep learning from each other, learning from people we don’t think we can learn anything from. I think that’s really important and I’m just looking at my own trajectory over the last years and my understanding of the issue has evolved dramatically to the point where now I used to see it as more of a technological problem that technology could fix a long time ago. And I’ve moved to an understanding that really it’s a symptom, it’s the climate emergency is not a monolithic problem. It’s a symptom of how the many dysfunctional ways that we have organized our society and our economy.

And as a result, there are many concomitant symptoms that also reflect this, for example, structural racism and poverty. These are all related symptoms of what we need to fix and so that’s really important to understand that we all need to continue to grow. And I’m working on that all the time in terms of what I would suggest to somebody who maybe is just getting started. The most important thing I think is learning more about the issues, the first step. And there are many great resources out there if you’re really brand new to the issue, check out for example, the EPA website or the NASA website that has a lot of great information there. If you know a little bit more and you’re ready to get started, check out and see how you might reduce your own footprint as a first step.

There’s the global footprint network has a carbon calculator where you can actually, it’s interactive. You can play around with numbers, it’s really interesting to see how you can make or reduce the carbon intensity of your own life. And then probably, most important right now for everybody is especially, with the midterm elections coming up is voting for candidates who support rapid climate action. That is incredibly important because what happens in November will really set the stage for how well the United States is going to be able to deal with this issue and we have to deal with it now. And then beyond that, I have to say that just start somewhere and keep walking. What I think what is really amazing is and what gives me hope is the power of individuals to make a difference.

And it all starts with a first step and then another step and if you repeat it, I think you’ll be surprised how far you can go. The ClimateMusic project just began as an idea in my studio here and playing with the idea, we took one step then another step and just a few years later, we’re here. So I think that there’s a lot that can be done just by talking to people. So that’s the other thing is if you feel like your neighbors don’t know much about the issue, invite them over, maybe start a learning group together with your neighbors. And once you’ve all learned together then figure out ways to work together in community to, for example, influence policy or to make changes in your community.

So there are many things that we can do. And the other thing I should mention is that all these things have co benefits, they can strengthen your community. They can make people who otherwise might feel isolated, let feel less isolated. So there are many possibilities of building virtual circles here which I think ultimately, will make everybody’s lives better. And that’s the other important point here is that we have to all understand that by solving this problem and really solving it again, solving it as solving the actual problems within our society not just climate change as a symptom, I think we really can create a world that’s within our grasp that really will make life better for virtually everybody. And that is something that everybody should really understand and really take to the heart and that’s something that I think should really motivate people as well.

Matt Schlegel:                   Yeah. Beautifully said. Boy, and I was just ticking off all the great ideas in there and just to highlight what you did is you took your knowledge and passion around climate change and then intersected that with your passion around music and you just so perfectly, highlight how no matter where you are, you can take whatever you’re passionate about and apply it to helping us solve the climate crisis.

Stephan Crawford:          Absolutely.

Matt Schlegel:                   Building communities. So I just think you are a really extraordinary example of the power of that. And so thank you again, for all of the great work that you’re doing. And I would love to have you come back and give us an update as you move forward with the ClimateMusic project. And thanks again for joining me in the conversation today, Stephan.

Stephan Crawford:          Thank you, Matt. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Matt Schlegel:                   Thanks for watching. Stephan has long had feelings about the climate crisis and he shared that his starting feelings tend to be sorrow, loss and despair. And since those feelings can be quite debilitating, he’s learned to compartmentalize those and tap into other feelings that give him more motivation on a day to day basis. That is such great advice from Stephan. Also, I love all the suggestions that he has for leaders and aspiring leaders who are having feelings about climate. He serves as such a great example himself by emphasizing the importance of simply communicating how you’re feeling about climate with others in your circles whether that be in conversations or using music as Stephan does. If you found this conversation helpful, please click on the thumbs up button, subscribe to the channel and get notifications of future episodes. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section and I’ll respond as soon as I can. Thanks again.