How to Make Climate Friends and Influence People by.... Listening to Them? An Intro to Motivational Interviewing
Motivational interviewing (MI), a style of personal interaction you can learn in a few weeks, is a key solution for spurring action on climate change. MI was developed by psychologists originally in work with patients suffering from addiction, but now is used in many settings to encourage self-reflection and help change minds. In this episode we talk with Vince, an expert in MI who will give us examples and talk about the process. Kiran and Leslie Anne will reflect on the value of MI and how they see it being used and we will hear about windmills and birds in climate allies this week!
Show Notes:
Vincent Schutt’s organization Motivational Interviewing organization, Environmentum
Vince’s book recommendation: Motivational Interviewing with Adolescents and Young Adults, by Sylvie Naar-King and Mariann Suarez
https://motivationalinterviewing.org/
Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers - gives an explanation of MI and how to start learning
The Coady International Institute - where Leslie Anne learned about Motivational Interviewing. They offer leadership courses and programs
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.6592
Painting windmills black could reduce bird mortality rates by up to 70%! An exciting climate win-win-win to advocate for
https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/motivational_interviewing.pdf
A Motivational Interviewing resource - page 3 highlights the types of questions and relational style at the heart of MI. This includes asking open-ended questions, affirming, reflecting, and summarizing.
TRANSCRIPT:
Keywords: motivational interviewing, climate, windmills, conversation, motivation, psychology, vote
Kiran 0:00
I think politics tracks large scale change. But if we understood the psychological changes that spurred people to take action, you know, for example, against an oppressive regime, or the ones that were they don't and we wonder from the outside why they aren't and you know, they're definitely society wide factors. And then they're these more individual things in the conversations that people are having in the media that they're consuming and how that affects their decisions that it's all part of this big jumbled up mess of attempting to predict and to guide I think human behavior in a positive way. Welcome to Episode Two of Rebalancing Act where Karen and Leslie Anne two law grads talk about climate solutions. We know that Canada has to solve climate change. Let's talk about how we get there while making our lives and communities better along the way. Nothing says in this podcast constitutes the formation of a legal relationship and all opinions are our own. Today I will be interviewing expert in motivational interviewing Vince Schutt on how we can have long overdue conversations decisions about climate change in a way that is actually proven to change hearts and minds, then mostly in and I do a little reflecting of our own, about how motivational interviewing fits into our understanding of transformational political change. Plus, how to save birds with one simple hack on Climate Allies, painting windmills, all this and more on today's episode of free balancing act. So, I just wanted to give a little bit of an introduction to Vince. He is someone I met when I felt a little bit lost, especially with respect to what someone as an individual is really able to do in the face of climate change. And what I discovered is maybe the most important type of individual action that any of us are able to take that is to talk to each other about it and actually listen to what each other is saying in ways that are empathetic and open and inspire change. And this is exactly what Vince has generously devoted his time to teaching, a technique called motivational interviewing that is proven to be the best way to talk to someone if you actually want to change their mind. So, having said that, to start us off, I was wondering if you could share a little bit about how you came to motivational interviewing in the context of climate action.
Vince 2:17
Really, the journey started really by accident. I was just carpooling randomly, one day with my husband who was training to be a clinical psychologist at the University of Buffalo. And we're just car-pooling, and I knew that he was doing different like clinical work, as a student getting trained in this at like with people who have like, drugs or something. And I asked him like, how do you help somebody like, who's addicted to drugs like, what do you do? And, you know, he said a few different things. I remember him saying the words motivational interviewing, I didn't know what those were. And I was driving and I'm pretty, you know, focused on the road. So, like it, something in my memory encoded that. And then nothing really happened at that moment. But um, if you fast forward a few years later, this was in like 2011-2012, something like that. Fast forward to 2014 yeah, so I had just moved to Toronto. I didn't really know anybody who was here. And I got involved with this thing called the People's Climate March. I'd never been to march before. And I've met a lot of people who are interested in environmental topics. I myself was interested. And that really much like a protester. That was never really like who I was, but I like I did it just because I wanted to meet some people. And so I ended up meeting like, Co-facilitator of the march, and I asked, you know, like, what are we doing, you know, after the march is over because I had done some research that said the biggest impact from the march is not actually the votes itself, but actually the organizing that happens and the new coalition's and things that emerge as a result of the march. So, I was like, okay, so I wanted to put my focus there, because if they did this match, I wanted there to be something meaningful to emerge from it. And I wanted there to be like, something happening as a result. So, I, I spoke to him and we ended up forming an organization. And for three months, we looked and looked and looked and said, what's going wrong? What's, what's the root cause of like what's causing us to not be able to act as a society, like what we've known for decades that we need to do so. Something about climate change, we need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. And despite knowing that for decades, the only thing that has ever reduced global greenhouse gas emissions is economic recession. That's the only thing. So, then it's like, it was clear that there was no skilled solution. I was at a loss for what to actually do about it. And then, and we will kind of, to a certain extent, ready to kind of just give up and move on. And then in December of 2014, we said, Well, why don't we just go to the library, and let's just read, we went to the library, we check out 15 books between the two of us and we start doing it, the second book that I started reading. I never got beyond that one. Because I found the magic and in that second book. It was a book called The Transition Handbook. And randomly in there, you know how like, can you see in a textbook There'll be like a grayed-out sort of like case study or something like that. And it's written by somebody else, not the author. And it's put in there as an example, or like a different perspective. So, there was a two-page thing like that in the original publishing of the Transition Handbook. And it was written by this psychologist. And it was basically just there to kind of talk about, well, what's the psychology of change? And randomly in this two-page sort of thing, he says the words motivational interviewing, and that reminded me of that, that thing that my husband does, and I say, what is that? It was that void of curiosity of what is that? That motivational interviewing thing that started a journey that has basically led me to where I am right now.
Kiran 6:52
That's an awesome story. And I think so frequently when we talk about transitions and political change, especially in historical retrospect. Let's ignore this the psychology of it, the tipping points that made people act. And when we haven't been able to successfully enact those through institutions, it seems like something like motivational interviewing that works at an individual level is a good way to fill in those gaps. Why don't we segue into the way that you perceive the problem of climate communication? And how motivational interviewing can help. And here it might be useful to touch on how our media environment has gotten more polarized and siloed over time. And as a result, the problems that motivational interviewing seeks to solve have gotten worse over time making the need for motivational interviewing more urgent,
Vince 7:41
why don't we actually start with the media environment. So, I mean, our media environment is one such wherein we can see it, we can feel it in our bones. Everybody knows that it's there. It's a polarization. It's a fabric to effectively the construct of our society as it is right now, which is this left versus right, independence and whatever conservatism is supposed to actually be, versus, you know, liberalism and whatever liberalism is supposed to be. We've been kind of drawn photo and photo apart from each other till the point where the other side has lost their humanity.
Kiran 8:27
When we talk about politics in a clinical or academic setting, we talk about it as a spectrum where you fall somewhere along the conservative to liberal side. But sometimes in today's media environment, these categories feel more like camps were in one or the other, and there's no gradation or room to move on specific issues. You're in or you're out.
Vince 8:48
Oh, it's definitely true. It's so it's the identity politics. It's like a lot of times people have like brought along with a message, that is something that A isn't in their best interest or B something that they don't even actually agree with, just because their circle of people that are closest with them are kind of sort of in the circle. So, there's this this network that is created around them. I'm the type of person that thinks that climate change isn't real. And even though we all actually know that it's real, including conservatives. So, if we think for a second that conservatives think that climate change isn't happening, so what we talked about like what is the gaps, right? Like what gap needs to be filled in one of the biggest gaps that needs to be filled in when we try to reach across to the other side via conservative reaching across to a liberal or be at a liberal reaching across to a conservative, how are we reaching out and usually in all of my experience in looking at the communications of environmentalists and environmentalists when reaching out to Conservative minded people are, very, very likely, and it's not everybody, so I can't say 100% because that would not be true, they are attempting to persuade the conservative to, like, let's say, look at the science. The result of that is that the conservative person feels beat over the head. And nobody wants to be saved. It's kind of insulting to them. And it really gets conservatives to put up their guard. And when they put up their guard, like, we've lost everything again, the polarization just got worse.
Kiran 10:37
Something that resonated with me when you were talking about motivational interviewing and teaching it to me, is that appeals to the science or to a neutral thing. It's not as if Oh, if I don't convince them, I'm actually doing no harm. It's that when you evoke resistance, it causes people to actually dig in heels more. So unsuccessful attempts at persuasion aren't harmless. They're actually driving people further apart,
Vince 11:01
I really have to limit my media diet for, for any kind of news and environmental topics at all, because it's just so hard to read, knowing and watching as the environmentalist is communicating is literally shooting themselves in the foot. It's just that Yeah,
Kiran 11:20
Absolutely. Though I do very much empathize, that these feelings of genuine and legitimate frustration with the lack of policy and action are completely and absolutely valid, and we should act on them. Even if acting on them in the way we do isn't necessarily the best way to move the conversation forward.
Vince 11:39
It's I think there's something here that has to be said to which is, whenever I've gone with the order of saying don't talk about the science, you know, then people then what happens is environmentalists erect walls. And so, I find that like, the motivational interviewing like and what else can I say, has to come first and then the environmentalist posts and makes it, they can allow themselves to do something different after that. So ultimately, like we, we may have actually erected a wall here in the audience of this podcast, you know, just by doing that. So then if we actually can take an inward look and say, like, you know, whoever's listening to this and say, did I feel resistance to what that guy Vince was talking about? You know, did I say, "Well, you know, we need to talk about science", that would be resistance. The source of that resistance is, do you need to have a different way? You need to have something else you feel confident about doing? What else am I supposed to say if I'm not talking about science, until you can answer that question. You can't get rid of the science you're going to have to science them and so that's why I just awful like Many like free motivational interviewing workshops as I can. Because this is basically that the training that people need to figure out how to actually draw in people from the conservative side. And it's actually a lot easier than you would ever imagine. And literally in a few weeks, people can learn how to do this.
Kiran 13:21
That's great. Even though the current approach isn't working. There's so much hope for how we can take these feelings of anger and frustration and desire for change and channel them in a more effective way to actually reach people on the other side. I know you have a few stories of successful instances of reaching people on the other side if you'd like to share one with us.
Vince 13:42
One story is just such an unexpected sort of thing. I was working to support the Green Party I was managing campaigns in Kitchener-Waterloo, and I was off doing canvassing one day for one of the candidates. And I knocked on someone's door with a woman answered. She identified herself as being a supporter of the of the PPC party. And I had identified myself as being representative of the Green Party. And you could see that in her body language, she was going to be like, well, I don't really, you know, support the Green Party I'm PPC, and then, you know, that was almost the end of a conversation. I responded to say, "Okay, thank you very much, you know, for letting me know that. And I think what's most important is that you vote even if that means voting for the PPC party. I'm not here to convince you of anything. I'm actually just here to learn more about what your needs are, and to bring your point of view back to the candidate because if the Green Party candidate wins, she's still representing you have and we still need to know like your thoughts and your feelings on things. So, if you'd be interested, I'd love to actually just ask you a couple questions just so I can get your feel on a couple different thing. So now we put those back to our candidate". And she was like, okay, and you could see her soft and I didn't resist her, she has the right to choose to vote for whoever its whole right to vote. That's the beauty of it. So, we empowered her to, you know, have the right that she already has anyway, but we didn't kind of counteract or say, Well, you know, this is the reason she said for green, which would have evoked the resistance. We ended up talking a little bit about carbon pricing, and she actually brought up the topic, she at one point in time said, you know, okay, well, I think that like the environmental thing it's all like we're being bamboozled and you know, it's a good thing to take I left Greenpeace because he told us what was really up and, and these are like, widely circulated sort of like keystone climate denial figures that just their story kind of put out in large wide circles. So, I've heard this too. I knew exactly what she was talking about. And, so I said, Okay, so then your seeking sort of like, you know your own perspective of a cure perspective, and you know, this spoke to you. And then at some point I did a reframe. She kept talking about like environmental, this environmental that, I wasn't talking about it at all. I was just kind of reflecting what she was saying. So, I was like, so what's important to you is not this carbon price. But what seems to be more important is just how we can actually have sustainable like food and water so we can actually, like have a nice life. And she's like, yeah, and so then we ended up talking about that, and the end of our conversation was on protecting the land, and this is one of the highest greenest objectives that we could have. Have which is protecting the land forward and historically sort of more in tune way of being in touch with the land. So anyway, so that's where the conversation ended. And we had a very like pleasant goodbye. And you could tell that she appreciated being able to express this.
Kiran 17:18
That's a really great story. And I think I'll highlight two things from it. The fact that our current ways of communicating with each other aren't working that well doesn't mean we should stop communicating. Like the fact that we're living in a more tribal political dynamic right now means that we need motivational interviewing. Your anecdote really highlights the importance and urgency of motivational interviewing. When we talk about psychology, sometimes it's hard to buy into it, but this story really helps it click for people. The other thing is that when we're at the top when we're thinking about climate solutions, we can't lose sight of the importance of democratic institutions is a part of the puzzle. As Leslie Anne, and I want to focus on the podcast in part on how democracy, democratic institutions have the ability to participate in politics are important climate solutions and also just for the notion of a good life and our society being a good one. So that person's right to vote is important, just like yours, and mine is. So, I'm curious to hear what success would look like to you. If people were talking about issues using motivational interviewing, what might happen?
Vince 18:26
Well, I mean, one success that that I would actually bring up is to do with the carbon price. So, we did a motivational interviewing training with the citizens climate lobby, which is here in Canada, it's a very loud constituent lobby group, constituents, residents speaking to their elected representatives. That's what it is, and effectively just using their voice to say you're representing me, this is what I want to talk about. So, I did motivational interviewing, training at annual conference after which they have a day where they go and speak to all of them Members of Parliament within about a week after that lobby weekend that they were doing. The Liberal government here in Canada said, "Okay, we're going to take the carbon price, we're gonna backfill it into any province that doesn't have a carbon price", and it became the first federal carbon fee and dividend in the world. I mean, that I think is probably the best example that I have this also a more sort of just granular example. So that's like very big picture that's, you know, nationwide policy, but just at a smaller level, that building that I am in, we had a motivational interviewing inspired lobby set up that we did, where we drew people in, they did this waste sorting game, we put them into a situation where they were able to teach themselves how to sort more accurately they themselves created their own waste sorting test and all throughout this, we used an interpersonal style very much like motivational interviewing. And then we were able to note a 7% improvement in the waste diversion in our building. And that was the only who will propagate all of that change from the top level, you know, and policy down to I worked with my community, there's a lot of different ways whenever we're communicating with somebody, then we can use this and be more effective.
Kiran 20:29
That's awesome. Thank you for both of those. So, I just have two last questions for you. Who was somebody that inspires you? And if there's one resource for further burning, or further reading that people interested in motivational interviewing can seek out what would you recommend?
Vince 20:46
Well, let me actually start with the additional reading. So, my favorite book on the topic of motivational interviewing is Sylvie now King's book, which is an MI with adolescents and young people. Even if you will, wanting to communicate with other groups that won't young people, I still find this my favorite book. I love her writing style. And I love the way that she has this little call outs, every few pages or so it's kind of like a little hint or tip or tie this type of a situation. And those things were the things that I think helped me to kind of develop my skillfulness in motivational interviewing so Slidell, and that was really, really wonderful for me. So that's the reading that is my favorite and who do I look up to? It's such an interesting question. I guess to a certain extent, I've done so much motivational interviewing, it kind of changes the way that I think I look up to the woman in that story that I told who was voting for PPC, I mean, do I do I agree of one to vote PPC, myself? No, not at all. But he was somebody who is in that world in the middle of this polarization and I am Did her to a conversation? And she said yes. And we had a wonderful conversation. And we didn't have to agree on everything. But she was able to trust me enough to be able to have that conversation, you know, despite all of the expectations that I was going to, you know, beat over the head with science and chain gathered of like vote green and do this and do that, even despite all of those feelings, that she may have been having an expectation that I was going to like, ride it riding on a high horse and tell her what to do, even despite all that she still didn't close the door on me. And I think that that's just so wonderful. What a wonderful person to still have the conversation despite all those feelings. So, I mean, that's the thing that comes to mind right now.
Kiran 22:48
That's a great answer. And I think there's a part of all of us that's able to be like that and remembering that about ourselves and being able to find that open mindedness in conversations with ourselves and other people. Something that we should all be striving towards. Thank you so much for such an amazing interview, I think there's so much value to think about that you were able to provide. So, thanks so much, Vince.
Vince 23:11
Oh, it's my pleasure. And good luck on the whole podcast thing. And I look forward to hearing many more.
Kiran 23:20
And now for a little reflection with Leslie Anne.
So, let's talk about motivational interviewing, first of all, bad branding. unfortunate that it's called motivational interviewing.
Leslie Anne 23:34
Totally. When I first heard about it, the idea I had in my mind of what it would be, did not match at all what it actually is.
Kiran 23:42
I know and the first time I met Vince is because I went to a motivational interviewing session. And I felt so bad for this guy that was there who clearly was there to learn how to like be a better interviewee, which is a super fair thing to go to a weekend session about, but motivational interviewing needs to rebrand I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the app. On the interview that I did with Vince,
Leslie Anne 24:02
what I actually found really interesting to start with was just learning a little bit about where motivational interviewing came from, and that it really does stem from the field of psychology. Because where I was first introduced to it was when I was doing a program at the Cody Institute at the University of St. Francis Xavier. And I learned about it in the context of community development work, I had always known it as a tool to use for change, as opposed to knowing it was ever based in psychology. I didn't know that. And I thought that was really interesting. And I think the idea of being resistant to that idea or not the idea of motivational interviewing, but that feeling of resistance you can sometimes feel when confronted with some of the ideas that were talked about in the interview is really tough because it's an uncomfortable feeling to sit with. But it's something that after listening to the interview, I've been trying to be more aware of what I'm encountering those moments. Definitely,
Kiran 24:53
there are definitely evolutionary forces hard at work against us, I would say, and I have I've actually found it's interesting that trying to apply motivation to bring to my home to my own life. There are some situations when it's easy, it's actually most difficult with deeply held beliefs with people that you care about. So, on some level, my close family members, I feel like it's really, really hard to motivationally interview them just because you have such an established relationship and patterns of behavior. And being that to overcome those set cognitive patterns is extremely difficult. So glad that you liked the interview. I think we both have a little bit of experience with motivational interviewing. So, like, it wasn't new content to us. But I do think that there are a lot of people who would benefit from an introduction to something like this. I think that, you know, with the environmental movement, sometimes we're worried about like, scaring away the people that are trying and I think that that's valid, like you want to be open and inclusive, but part of that is actually about employing techniques that make people feel heard and empathize with and I mean, this is true of any organization, not just environmental organization,
Leslie Anne 26:01
there are environmental groups that are working on so many different aspects of the climate crisis and other environmental issues. And I think strategies like this are also really important for folks to be able to interrogate their own perspective of what is our organization actually trying to accomplish? Something I've talked about with an organization I work with sometimes is that they've stated they want to engage in indigenous solidarity work, but they very often find themselves taking a position on issues without having thought about do these issues relate to the climate crisis? Is this an issue we need to be engaging in? Or is this an internal issue between indigenous communities? And in that case, how do you pick which side to be in solidarity with and while I didn't engage in a formal motivational interviewing process, even understanding this process is really helpful for me to be able to ask some of those important questions to get people to self-reflect because I can't tell an organization what their purpose is by being able to process Someone to self-reflect and come to their own conclusion is really helpful, even if you're not trying to change their mind, but simply trying to help somebody clarify their own purpose or mission as well.
Kiran 27:11
Well, it's one of those things where I, I absolutely don't buy into this whole humans are bad. But I think that there's a trend on the internet and also in discourse of humans being inherently terrible and destructive. And most people want the same things in life. You know, we're not, we're not that special. We're pretty simple creatures. And I think if you're able to help people self-reflect on what they want in life, those things turn out to be more universal and more relatable to your life than you can imagine. You know, it's the example where Vince talks about, it turns out that he wants similar things to a woman who supports a party that's on the other end of the political spectrum from him. And if you know you only listen to the official discourse, they would never seem to have anything in common, but she wants her version of a good life and so does he
Leslie Anne 28:00
Absolutely. And that's something that when it comes to politics, I think about a lot, especially coming from an area where I grew up that is politically very, very conservative. The Conservative Party in Canada wins in a landslide every year. And I've now moved to an area that tends to be much more on the opposite end of the political spectrum, tending to be liberal or NDP, and everyone has a right to their own approach to get to what would be a good life, and no one has a monopoly on the right way to get there either. And I think framing things in that way isn't helpful. And that's what I think is really important about that example from Vince as well as that you can think you have totally opposite views to somebody, but really, you just have different perspectives on how to get to the same result.
Kiran 28:42
And it's like, I understand that on some level, yes, we're presenting an idealized version of different political parties, but like we're talking media environments, leading people to be more siloed aside that it's absolutely true. I really appreciate for this reason that I was able to have an actual academic up, you know, and I academic education and how politics works. And in retrospect, I think that it might have even benefited from a more multi-disciplinary approach that involves psychology to understand how change happens, because I think politics tracks large scale change. But if we understood the psychological changes that spurred people to take action, you know, for example, against an oppressive regime, or the ones that were they don't take and we wonder from the outside, why they aren't. And you know, they're definitely society wide factors. And then they're these more individual things in the conversations that people are having in the media that they're consuming and how that affects their decisions, that it's all part of this big jumbled up mess of attempting to predict and to guide I think human behavior in a positive way.
Leslie Anne 29:43
Absolutely. I think that's really, really important. And I know for me, I can think back to many examples in my life where something has made me consider one of my deeply held beliefs and I have to either sit with that discomfort or at times, I've not done that and simply rejected that challenge to my beliefs and whether or not if I had engaged if I had sat without discomfort what I've changed my mind, I don't know. But I think I much prefer now to sit with that discomfort and to let my beliefs be challenged, because I don't remember who, where I first heard this, but it's the idea that being challenged on your beliefs, if they don't change your mind will only make your ability to articulate your belief stronger, because you're confronted with questions and other opinions. And if you still hold the same belief at the end, which shouldn't necessarily be your goal, but if you do, it's with a deeper understanding of your own opinion.
Kiran 30:37
Yeah. And sometimes people aren't ready to change. And I think motivational interviewing is a discipline except that you're not always going to change someone's mind. And no matter how hard you try whatever technique that you do, you cannot change someone else's mind for them. I think a really important aspect of it is that it recognizes the fundamental autonomy that we all have over our own minds and actions.
Leslie Anne 31:00
And I think that's really the best way to approach changing somebody's mind is if you approach someone from the perspective of they are wrong and don't have a right to hold that belief, even if you change their mind, I can't imagine a way you can do that and salvage that relationship. And I think not only is talking to people in a way that can support their engagement in environmental and climate work important, but I think relationships are incredibly important as well, no matter what someone believes that aspect of motivational interviewing that regardless of whether someone changes their mind is likely to deepen your relationship, I think is also so so important. Because that relationship can still change their mind later that relationship can help them determine what is accurate, accurate information about our political systems or about climate change later on. It doesn't just serve that one purpose and that one moment.
Kiran 31:47
I also think this is an individual and maybe one of the most important ways to fill that gap between we have to act and what can I as an individual do to bridge that gap between having to act and urgently acting, and I think most Basically interviewing each other and having these more empathetic and open conversations about climate change and bringing it from a topic that's taboo and polarized and just don't really want to find out what someone else believes about it in case they believe something bad or something to something where it's okay if they believe something different. But it's important to bring it up open is actually one of the most important things that we can do.
Leslie Anne 32:23
You don't know what impact individuals can have on what we view as very big actions that as individuals, we can't take these somebody has to take those actions. It may not be us, but we don't know who can influence those actions. So, at Rebalancing Act, we really like to leave you guys with something practical that you can do based on the episode and the conversation we've had. And so I think something I would really suggest for all of our listeners to do is look up an example of a motivational interview online, we'll link to at least one in the show notes and watch it, think about it, maybe Google a little bit more and then try to have a conversation based In motivational interviewing with somebody in your life, it doesn't have to be a formal interview, but have a conversation with them that is based around those principles, for example, or help someone come to a reflection or simply just self-reflect on your own.
Kiran 33:12
I think that's a great takeaway, Leslie Anne and now last but not least, we have this week's episode of Climate Allies. What happens if you paint windmill blades? Turns out, it's good. And this is so hilarious because why didn't we think of this before on this week's Climate Allies, we are talking about peeps who want to paint wind turbines black to reduce the amount of birds that get killed by them, which just sounds like a win win win. It's like, you know, when a phone or computer company, they have the gray version, but then they come up with the black laptop and you're like, "Whoa, this is it" We're giving you the new piece of high tech equipment.
Leslie Anne 33:52
And honestly, I'm really looking forward to when windmills become the next miracle because you know how they spin an elite That kind of residual color in your vision like when you're the kid with the pinwheels that you're blowing and it kind of blurs think of the amazing really rad murals that can be done on a spinning windmill, I have no idea how to do it. I am not the artistic one, but I'm positive that is possible anything but white, anything I would say on the dark end of the spectrum. Now to be clear, I am extrapolating from the research that's been done research done was on black windmills, but I would guess other dark colors would work as well. And they can reduce mortality of birds by up to 70%. 70% more birds!!
Kiran 34:33
Anything that is a win for the climate and a win for the bird populations is just you know, that's real climate ally ship right there. Especially because it just seems like the kind of thing that can be retrofitted that isn't that expensive. And that looks pretty cool. We're gonna link the study in the show notes was more of a balancing act. Tune in two Fridays from now for an expert interview on the parallels and differences between the COVID 19 pandemic and climate change. what lessons can we learn about the relative effectiveness of different responses to COVID? What climate solutions can be drawn from our experiences in the pandemic, we highlight the importance of resilient communities and resilient systems. See you then.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
