In This Episode
For our last episode of Hot Take, Amy and Mary revisit their favorite jokes, and dig into the listener mailbag to answer questions from Hot Cakes around the globe.
Follow us on twitter @RealHotTake
TRANSCRIPT
Mary Annaise Heglar [AD]
Amy Westervelt Hey, hot cakes. Welcome to Hot Take. I’m Amy Westervelt.
Mary Annaise Heglar And I’m Mary Annaise Heglar. And this is a very special episode of Hot Take because we’re going to be answering your questions. So technically, y’all are the guests this episode.
Amy Westervelt It’s true. And there’s so many good ones. I’m so excited.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah. And some of it some of them are a little bit in concert with each other, so I’m kind of wondering if y’all colluded.
Amy Westervelt Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Mary Annaise Heglar By the time this comes out, this will be the last episode of Hot Take.
Amy Westervelt Aww.
Mary Annaise Heglar So I know we’ve said this before, earlier episodes, but we’ve really enjoyed building this platform and getting to know y’all over the years, having y’all get to know us, getting to have all of these wild and crazy conversations about our wild and crazy climate. And thank you all so much for listening over the years. We really, really appreciate you.
Amy Westervelt Yeah, I think that’s been the best part of this whole endeavor is just the community that’s kind of grown up around hot take the hot cakes.
Mary Annaise Heglar The hot cakes. Also the jokes. I mean.
Amy Westervelt Also the jokes. Yes.
Mary Annaise Heglar Thank you. Thank you. No one asked this, but the reason the jokes came into play was because of our Season one finale, which took place at the very beginning of the pandemic lockdowns. I believe we recorded that in like April 2020. So kind of a dark time. And we did it drunk and we asked Twitter for dad jokes, and that’s how that happened. We were like, Let’s keep doing this cuz this is great.
Amy Westervelt I forgot about that. Yeah, actually they were so handy for for like breaking up really serious moments that could have, like, become real downers.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah. Yeah. Because that’s always a risk.
Amy Westervelt It happens in climate. Yeah, always the risk.
Mary Annaise Heglar So also in this episode will be playing some of our favorite dad joke moments from from over the season. So excited to hear those again too because I am crazy enough to go back and listen to them.
Amy Westervelt Oh, awesome. All right. Well, actually, this is a great episode to end with because it’s all about you guys and that’s kind of been the focus of the show. So it’s nice. It’s a nice note to end on.
Mary Annaise Heglar It is. It is. All right, Amy, you ready?
Amy Westervelt It’s time to talk about climate.
Mary Annaise Heglar Okay. Our first listener question is from Steph, and I’m just going to go ahead and read it because I think it’s a good question for you to start off with. Amy, why is everyone going hall hog wild over energy efficiency yet? It’s in the IRA, sure, but it’s like not. It’s such an easy. When are there downsides? I’m missing. It still requires manufacturing, for example. Or is it just not compelling enough? Thoughts Welcome XO. XO Aw.
Amy Westervelt This is a great question. I feel like I feel like we should have had Kendra Pierre Louis on here to answer this question because this is her hill to die on.
Mary Annaise Heglar It’s her soapbox baby.
Amy Westervelt It is her soapbox. It’s insane that we’re not going hog wild on energy efficiency. I think that it has a lot to do actually with fossil fuel lobbying against energy efficiency because who wants us to be less efficient? The people who sell energy. You know? And so that’s a big part of it. It’s but it’s wild because you go to countries where energy efficiency is a thing and even in, you know, low income housing projects, you know, hospitals, schools, everywhere you go, there’s like proper installation, double paved windows, you know, because nobody wants to be spending a fortune on their heating or cooling bills make sense. And for some reason, we are extremely behind on this. I can’t remember the last like school in the US, for example, that I went into that had like proper insulation and windows.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah.
Amy Westervelt That seems like such a low hanging fruit.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah. I learned from Twitter there are places on this planet where if you leave your appliances plugged in, they’re not using idle energy. But here in the U.S., if you want your appliances to use no energy, you have to unplug them, right?
Amy Westervelt That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. Stuff like that where. I just feel like we’re leaving so many easy wins on the table. And and in a lot of cases, energy efficiency is really cost effective to like it doesn’t cost that much money and it saves people money on their electricity bills, too. So like a lot of times, you know, in these discussions where people are like, oh, these climate policies are making a. One’s electricity bills go up well. Here’s a case where they could make everyone’s bills go down. And, yeah, I just I think the only the only answer is really, you know, industry lobbying against energy efficiency. So. And I do think it has a it does have a little bit of a an image problem, like it’s not sexy.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah. It’s like the absence of doing something in a way. Right. Like you would you would have to, like, you know, create the efficiency by, like, retrofitting a bunch of stuff. So sure, that’s doing something, but it’s not like a solar panel feels like you’re doing something different in a way. The energy efficiency, I guess, kind of does it. But I also wonder if energy efficiency doesn’t isn’t as sexy to people because it would actually save people money in a in a different kind of way. And like, I wonder if it’s not just the fossil fuel lobby, but also the utilities.
Amy Westervelt Possibly. Yeah, possibly also the utilities. Because, like, there’s a there’s sort of an interesting history here where in the seventies, when there was the big what do you call it, the ban on on sending fossil fuels from the Middle East to the U.S., that the OPEC ban on on the U.S.. And so there were major shortages here. This is like a keg. You’ll see these old pictures of people lining up at gas stations and all that kind of stuff. Americans got really, really, really good at energy efficiency. Like people just got good on their own because every, like, energy was costing so much that they needed to. And there’s a whole bunch of stuff that shows that, yeah, both the utilities and the fossil fuel industry were really freaking out about this, especially as that all started to get worked out at the sort of geopolitical level. But like people had created new habits and they were like, How are we going to get people consuming more energy? Again, this is like actually my favorite example of how that industry is not at all a supply and demand industry is as much as they like to claim that they’re just like fulfilling a demand. They, they. They do a lot to keep that demand up. And in this case, they really like manipulated pricing and production levels to get fuel down to a cost that would make people be kind of over consumers of energy again. So yeah, that’s that’s that’s what happened. So, you know. Two like lessons from that as a we we can do energy efficiency if we want to and it works. And B, if we want to do that, we have to be prepared to handle the industry because they will absolutely push back on it.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah, basically, energy efficiency is socialism.
Amy Westervelt Yes.Exactly.
Mary Annaise Heglar Okay. Our our next question comes from Amy.
Amy Westervelt But not. Me. Not me, I swear. Yes.
Mary Annaise Heglar Suspicious. Amy has two questions, just like an Amy. One, is it possible to convert offshore oil rig platforms into offshore wind platforms? And if so, would it be possible to seize them through eminent domain? And two, who is Brian Kahn and why does he want your hate mail?
Mary Annaise Heglar Okay. Let’s let’s deal with the offshore wind platform guys in first. I don’t know. Sounds to me like a great way to run into a critical infrastructure law and find yourself in a lot of trouble. So I don’t know. Have you tried this personally?
Amy Westervelt I mean. Theoretically, you could turn an offshore oil platform into an offshore wind. Like you could repurpose some of the elements of an offshore oil platform to build an offshore wind platform. And in fact, like a lot of the people who have built offshore oil platforms have now retreated. And are the countries, you know, sort of experts on building offshore wind platforms, many of them from your neck of the woods on the Gulf Coast. That’s kind of where the main workforce for offshore wind is coming from. And they’re all former offshore oil guys. So like a similar set of skills, a similar approach to construction, but like you basically have to sort of take it apart and reconstitute it like you use some pieces and ditch others. As far as eminent domain, no, that does not come into play in in the ocean, actually. So. So, no, you couldn’t. But I mean, the government could probably incentivize converting offshore oil to offshore wind. What they’re doing now is like providing equal number of offshore oil leases for every wind lease that they offer. So they’re pretty far away from forcing the issue on shifting from oil to wind, unfortunately. But they could I mean, honestly, like what the government could do is stop offering offshore oil leases and put an end date on the ones that exist. That would be pretty easy to do. That could be done by executive order. They’re just not doing it. They’re not doing it. So yeah, yeah.
Mary Annaise Heglar Kind of doing the opposite. So I mean, theoretically. So the answer is like theoretically yes. But likelihood no.
Amy Westervelt Yeah. Well, theoretically yes. On the conversion, no on the eminent domain question and that. Andrew Yeah. You’ve got the whole like political will problem. So yeah. Yeah. Let’s move on to the more fun question. Brian Kahn and hate mail.
Mary Annaise Heglar So Brian Kahn is a friend of the show, also journalist, most recently protocol but was recently, you know, laid off in all of the all the media layoffs lately. But he was a guest on our second season of Hot Take. And one of the things we learned about Brian during that episode is that he loves hate mail. You know, as Amy can tell you, climate journalists get a lot of hate mail. Well, shit, I guess. Actually, I can tell you that, too. Yeah.
Amy Westervelt Yeah.
Mary Annaise Heglar Climate writers get a lot of hate mail. I’ve gotten some really crazy shit in the physical mail before.
Amy Westervelt Jesus.
Mary Annaise Heglar I know, right? Some guy wrote me like this long letter trying to be like, I used to be like you and be really sad about climate change. And then I realized it was all a hoax. And I was like, Oh, shit, dude. Anyway, but yeah. So climate writers, climate journalists get a lot of hate mail and Brian, like, collects his. And we were like, You know what? You want ours. And so he was like, Yes, I absolutely do. So we always send our hate mail to Brian.
Amy Westervelt That’s right.
Mary Annaise Heglar Sometimes he sends it to us.
Amy Westervelt He’s actually gotten. He has gotten some emails for us. I don’t know if he’s actually gotten hate mail or not. He’s actually more gotten questions for us.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah, like, who are you?
Amy Westervelt Yeah. Yeah. Before he was at protocol. Brian was at earther for a really long time, too, so you might recognize his name from there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah. Love, hate mail. We were like, you should make a newsletter. That’s just like your weekly hate mail.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah. Or like a coffee table book would be really funny, too.
Amy Westervelt Yes. Yeah. Because, well, when he was at Earther especially, he used to get ones because they were owned by Gizmodo. And so like that stuff would get picked up in lots of different places and he would get crazy emails from people that were like. You fucking dumb ass. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah.
Amy Westervelt Yeah.
Mary Annaise Heglar Like threats too.
Amy Westervelt Mmhmm. Yeah.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah, it’s kind of insane. So yeah, he’s, he’s gotten some stuff for us and it’s always very amusing. And Brian, as I mentioned, has already has left protocol, so I don’t have an email for him right now. But if you’re on Twitter, he also takes hate DMs.
Amy Westervelt That’s true. He does. He does. All right. Question number three. Is from Niam. And they write. Hey, I love the podcasts. You make understanding climate much more accessible and sometimes even funny. Thanks for all the dad jokes. There you go, Mary. My question is, what is your favorite song, artist or genre of music? Ooh, that’s tough. It’s hard to pick just one.
Mary Annaise Heglar Just one. So tough for me. Okay. My favorite song in the world has been Lean on Me by Bill Withers ever since I was a little kid. If that song came on the radio and yes, I’m aging myself, I would make my mom, like, stop the car. Like, we couldn’t get out of the car until the song was over. It’s how much I love that song.
Amy Westervelt That’s so funny because I was going to say favorite artist, Bill Withers, man.
Mary Annaise Heglar Oh, really?
Amy Westervelt Every time.
Mary Annaise Heglar I did know that about you.
Amy Westervelt Yeah. Yeah.
Mary Annaise Heglar My favorite artist is Stevie Wonder.
Amy Westervelt Oh, nice. Nice. Yes. Yeah, I have. I have like a like a Bill Withers greatest hits record that I put on every Sunday morning. I love it.
Mary Annaise Heglar Like a physical record?
Amy Westervelt A physical record. Yes.
Mary Annaise Heglar You know, I know something really funny. Our producer just started writing in the outline. Mary, can you sing and then quickly deleted it? Which, good call. It showed up for like a split second.
Amy Westervelt That’s hilarious. It doesn’t. Clearly he’s never karaoke with you.
Mary Annaise Heglar The answer is, I will sing.
Amy Westervelt Okay, let’s hear it.
Mary Annaise Heglar Really?
Amy Westervelt No. Only if you want to. Only if you want to.
Mary Annaise Heglar No, you don’t. You don’t. Also as far as genre of music, I guess R&B, but R&B to me includes a lot of stuff. Like it includes funk, it includes.
Amy Westervelt Yeah.
Mary Annaise Heglar It includes any black music that isn’t like rap.
Amy Westervelt That isn’t hip hop.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah. Or it can include a lot of hip hop to actually just not like specifically rap.
Amy Westervelt Yeah. Yeah.Yeah, I would say the same actually that’s mostly what I listen to. Some I have like I do have like a I. So we’ve established now that I have a record player, I have a bunch of like old, like Brazilian and, and like Latin music records too that I likeI like when I’m cooking, actually.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah, I love. Yeah, I like Brazilian music too, in particular.
Amy Westervelt Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. So yeah. I like all that stuff. Uh, thanks for the question, especially because it wasn’t about anything depressing.
Mary Annaise Heglar It wasn’t. Thank you. Just a little get to know you. Always love it.
Amy Westervelt I like it. I like it. Okay. Next one is from Alex. And he writes, Why do you think late nineties and early 2000 mainstream environmentalism was focused so much on animals and less on humanity and risks to our living? I understand that protecting animals is an important cause, but focusing the whole narrative on that just doesn’t make sense to me. Especially when mainstream organizations haven’t done much to actually protect animal habitats and stopping species endangerment at a large scale. This is a really interesting question because I think there’s like a few sides to it. What do you think, Mary?
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah, I mean, I’ve I’ve worked in environmental nonprofits. I have a little bit of insight into this. One is that the environmental movement, especially of that time period, was directly grown out of the conservation movement, which really was all about animals and like protecting pristine wildlife places from people of color for the enjoyment of recreation by by white people. Right. It’s kind of like if you ever watch Mad Men, there’s this moment where Don Draper, his wife Betty, gets really into conserving the reservoir in Dutchess County. And that’s that type of like ladies who launch environmentalism or conservation. And it’s all about like, I want to keep these, you know, cute little animals, cute so that I can go look at them. I want to keep this water clean so that I can go fish in it and vacation next to it, not because of any sort of like real altruism. It’s basically you want to keep your playground for your playground. And the other reason I think it was kept so much about animals is this really deep fear that people in environmentalism have about scaring people. And by not wanting to scare people, a lot of the time, once you dig a little bit deeper, what you realize is that they don’t want to scare themselves. So by focusing on the animals, you don’t have to focus on the impacts to people and therefore you don’t have to really think about the impacts to you. You can like sort of otherize it and distance yourself from the real impacts of it. And I think is I agree with you. I think it did a real disservice because at the exact same time that you’re trying to create that kind of distance, there are real people who are suffering on the front lines of it and you’re raising them and replacing them with polar bears. And don’t get me wrong, Amy and I both love a good polar bear. We love animals, and we think animals should be protected and cared for as part of this ecosystem. But we in that particular time period, we’re way too heavy on the animals and completely ignored the people.
Amy Westervelt Mm hmm.
Mary Annaise Heglar What do you think, Amy?
Amy Westervelt Well, there’s a couple of things. One, I want to I want to shout out Rev Yearwood.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah.
Amy Westervelt And the episode that we did with him, where he talked about how early, like a lot of early environmentalists were very specifically avoiding joining the civil rights movement at the time. Which I think is such a like important point to remember. I also think that I know like so I worked for an the journal that a nonprofit put out. So like I was in the same office as an environmental nonprofit. And my observation from that time was like, Oh this is where rich white people go to not feel guilty about being rich or white young. During that time period in particular, it was like, okay, this is, you know, so.
Mary Annaise Heglar Where they go to be un problematic.
Amy Westervelt Exactly. So to your point about kind of avoiding the people who are actually being impacted by this. Yes, definitely. Like they did not. These were not people that wanted to engage with environmental racism or the way that like consumer culture and class played into this problem at all. They really were just like, you know, about preserving nature. On the other end of the coin. I, I talked to someone recently who kind of blew my mind because they were talking about how the fossil fuel industry and its operatives really pushed the idea that all environmentalists cared about was pristine nature. Yes. And and so so it’s interesting to look at like how much of this was real and how much of it was it was like superimposed on the movement by its opponents because and and I think the the answer. Is like, oh, well, they saw this weakness and exploited it. You know, which is which is like what has continued to happen every time the climate movement, you know, has sort of an obvious failing or an obvious inability to interact with larger societal issues. That weakness is exploited by the fossil fuel industry very effectively to be like, Oh, these people are elitists, or These people are out of touch, or These people are racist, or these people are classes. Don’t be.
Mary Annaise Heglar They’re very good at that.
Amy Westervelt And no one can say that, you know.
Mary Annaise Heglar I mean they’ll say any fucking thing like they’re not above lying.
Amy Westervelt That’s true.
Mary Annaise Heglar But like, don’t don’t be racist because don’t be racist.
Amy Westervelt Right. Right, right, right.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah.
Amy Westervelt Exactly. The other thing I think is important to note, though, is that like, you know, we were talking about this the other day. I do feel like there’s been almost an overcorrection in the opposite direction where like people are like, fuck polar bears, you know. I don’t think that’s good either. It’s really weird. I actually I was I was talking to Tara Houska about this, who’s an indigenous lawyer and writer and activist, and she was saying that that she feels like that has actually done a real disservice to the climate movement and has also really moved the movement pretty far away from how Indigenous people view these things. Yeah, because she’s like, you know. We view nature as our relative and ancestors. So the idea that it has to be like, you know, either this pristine thing over there or this thing, that doesn’t matter at all.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah.
Amy Westervelt What the fuck are these choices, you know?
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah. It’s like man versus nature or nature versus man. It’s like, yeah, neither of these is correct.
Amy Westervelt That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. So. And also, like, I think kind of embedded in that is the idea that that like we’ve talked about several times on this show that people of color don’t care about nature, which is totally false. So yeah.
Mary Annaise Heglar Never met one honestly. Never met one.
Amy Westervelt Not a single one.
Mary Annaise Heglar Because, you know what, every time I meet a person of color, they tend to be breathing air.
Amy Westervelt Right. Exactly.
Mary Annaise Heglar Kind of need to care about nature to do that.
Amy Westervelt Yeah. Yeah. Yep. So. Yeah.
Mary Annaise Heglar Well, cue dad joke. What happens when you eat marijuana?
Drew Depends on how you’ve processed it.
Mary Annaise Heglar You got to think like a pun. You gotta think like a pun.
Drew You digest the weed. Digest weed.
Mary Annaise Heglar You get a pot belly Drew.
Drew Thats so dumb.
Amy Westervelt It’s actually true. That is also true, though.
Drew That is true. Well, it can be true.
Mary Annaise Heglar I’m so glad we’re having this conversation about democracy because a lot of people say our democracy is a trash fire right now. And did you hear about the circus fire?
Adam I heard something vague about it, but I did not. I did not. I don’t know, like the specifics of the story.
Mary Annaise Heglar It was in tents. Get it?
Adam Wow. Wow. That is an impressive dad pun. I really should have seen that coming.
Mary Annaise Heglar Wait. Back up. Is there a real circus fire?
Adam When you asked me that. I was thinking oh, yeah. There was a fire at a circus.. Maybe that was just my brain tricking me. I was like, Oh, or maybe it was like me like having skimmed some story on Twitter.
Mary Annaise Heglar There is a literal trash fire in India going on right now.
Amy Westervelt Oh, God.
Adam Maybe that’s maybe that’s what I was. I don’t know. I definitely saw, like, a big news story about a fire. And and I was like, I don’t you know, I saw something about it, but I don’t really know what you’re talking about.
Amy Westervelt Oh.
Mary Annaise Heglar Poor Adam Serwer. He never saw it coming.
Amy Westervelt That was so funny. that is still I think that’s my favorite dad joke moment in all three seasons.
Mary Annaise Heglar It’s up there for me.
Amy Westervelt Hilarious.
Mary Annaise Heglar It’s up there for me. But it was hysterical.
Amy Westervelt So good. I thought something about it. But ugh.
Mary Annaise Heglar Like, no you didn’t. No, you didn’t. Oh, boy, that was hilarious.
Amy Westervelt That was so good.
Amy Westervelt [AD]
Mary Annaise Heglar All right. Our next question comes from Rebecca. I love your show. I have a couple of questions I want to ask your hat. Nice. Your hot take on what is one of the best ways I as a person can help the climate movement. Also, I have a401k through my work. I know a lot of times for 401ks invest in fossil fuel companies and other bad organizations. Is there a way I can have a 401k without giving money to fossil fuels? Lessen the negative impacts of this? Also, what are your cats like? Here’s a picture of my cat below as a pumpkin. Oh. Oh, my God.
Amy Westervelt So cute
Mary Annaise Heglar I thought our producer cut the cat out and I was about to send them a bit text but no there’s the cat and it looks kind of like Baloo. Oh, my god you’re cat’s so cute.
Amy Westervelt I know. I was like, oh, he looks like Baloo. So cute.
Mary Annaise Heglar All right. Let’s take the fun question first. What are your cats like? My cat is perfect, spelled with a U. And he is currently laying on my lap in front of my in my little recording studio in my closet. He won’t let me record hot take without him or do almost anything without him. He’s very dog like in that way. Like he kind of follows me around. He always wants attention and like cuddles and also he’s protective. So if I don’t like someone, he won’t let that person near me if it’s possible.
Amy Westervelt That’s so cute.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah, he’s very sweet, and I think he knows how cute he is.
Amy Westervelt He’s very handsome. I feel like that’s important to know about Baloo. He’s like a very handsome cat.
Mary Annaise Heglar Amy has two cats now.
Amy Westervelt I do. One is, Sir, and he is very old and very large. He is a 30lb cat.
Mary Annaise Heglar Damn.
Amy Westervelt So really about the size of a small dog. Not even that small. Probably bigger than a lot of small dogs.
Mary Annaise Heglar What are you feeding this cat? Steak?
Amy Westervelt He’s not he He’s definitely a little bit chunky, but he’s also just like a big boy. He’s like, big boned.
Mary Annaise Heglar Uh huh.
Amy Westervelt And he is also very, very furry and actually also, like, really likes to cuddle. He’s very insistent about, like, shoving his head in my in my hand for cuddles.
Mary Annaise Heglar Wait. How old is sir?
Amy Westervelt He is 14 now.
Mary Annaise Heglar Okay? He’s not that much older than Baloo. Baloo’s turning 11.
Amy Westervelt Yeah, yeah. He’s definitely like. He’s seeming quite old now. I think he can’t see that well anymore. Like I think he can see outlines of things, but like I consistently see him getting totally surprised by my other cat who’s a kitten. So she just like shows up out of like she likes to, like, jump around and move quickly and he’s like, Oh, what was that? You know? So the other cat is Clementine and she is a kitten. She’s almost a year old, though, so I think she’s just going to be a really small cat because she’s tiny. Yeah. Like the opposite of Sir. She’s like a tiny baby. She is blind in one eye. We got her. She just like, showed up in our backyard one day and really, like, did not want anything to do with humans. And my youngest son sort of like, tamed her over time and then started begging us to bring her inside. So I had to, like, go get flea medicine and all that stuff. And then we let her in and now she’s just like, totally the family cat. And she’s very cute. She’s a calico cat.
Mary Annaise Heglar Aww
Amy Westervelt Yeah. And she’s also I mean, our recent problem with her is that she was spayed, but apparently like some of the tissue remains. And so she actually she like went into heat and I was like, oh, no. What, like, did the spaying not work? What happened? Do I have to worry about her getting pregnant? Because on top of the fact that I don’t really want to deal with kittens, she’s extremely tiny, so I just don’t know that she could even do that. But we took her to the vet and the vet was like, No, she’s fine. There’s just like some of these tissues floating around. So now, once a month or so, she is just a very horny cat that wants to go out all the time.
Mary Annaise Heglar Alright Rebecca you asked. Amy is over here. Slut shaming a cat. Let the record show.
Amy Westervelt I know. Well, because it’s like there’s some rough looking cats around here and I’m like, oh, my God, Clementine. Come on, raise your standards.
Mary Annaise Heglar Wow. You know what she likes? What she like. Okay.
Amy Westervelt I mean I was trying to tell my husband the other day, I’m like, listen, it’s fine. It’s just natural. My only concern is that she might, like, pick up some disease or something, so. You know.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah. Yeah. Don’t want her coming back with the mange.
Amy Westervelt Yeah, exactly. That’s going to be my next problem. She’s hilarious though.
Mary Annaise Heglar She’s on flea medicine, though?
Amy Westervelt I do. She’s on flea medicine, so that’s good. She’s just hilarious. She has a lot of personality.
Mary Annaise Heglar Also, Amy has a dog.
Amy Westervelt I also have a dog.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah, she can talk about the dog very much.
Amy Westervelt Mm hmm. He is my shadow. Oh, my God. That dog cannot be without me.
Mary Annaise Heglar Ugh. Brag.
Amy Westervelt Yeah. He also. He has body dysmorphia in, like, the opposite way that you usually hear about it. He thinks he’s a Chihuahua, but he is like a giant. And so occasionally I find him, like, stuck in tiny spaces that he thought he could fit into.
Mary Annaise Heglar Oh, my gosh, poor Bandit.
Amy Westervelt So, cute. It’s so funny.
Mary Annaise Heglar Poor Bandit, you know?
Amy Westervelt Yeah. Yeah. Anyway.
Mary Annaise Heglar All right, so onto your your bigger question of what is what’s the best way that you as a person can help the climate movement? Honestly, I think you’re well on your way because the best thing you can do is to keep looking for the next thing to do and kind of just like incorporating it into how you show up in the world as as a person. So kudos to you on that. And just like you’re just going to keep looking for the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. And that’s just kind of how it rolls. It’s like, you know, what is the next way I can dismantle white supremacy, right? Because it’s never going to be just one thing. And I think you, from the way this question is, where do you already know that? And moving your money around is a really big way to do that. And Amy. Yeah, I know you’ve, you know, done a lot of work on that.
Amy Westervelt Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think it’s like one of the easiest individual actions is to just like, see where like what? Not just referral and K, but also, you know, your, your main bank, your like deposit account or savings account to a lot of major national banks. Lend your money out for fossil fuel projects, which is not cool. But on the forum, one key thing you can absolutely put your money in a401k that does not invest in any fossil fuel projects and if you’re at your work like should offer that whoever’s in charge of the 401k you should be able to say, you know, I want a socially responsible fund and there are several to choose from. So yeah, that like someone else has already done that work. You just have to ask for it.
Mary Annaise Heglar Mm hmm. Yeah. So thank you, Rebecca. And our next question is from Alec. Hey, since the Republicans won the House. Thank you so much for that reminder. Alec and the Democrats still control the Senate. Is it possible for laws that the House passed during this Congress to be passed by the Senate during the next Congress? Does that ever happen? If not, is it because of the law or is it just a norm we should break for the sake of, you know, saving civilization?
Amy Westervelt Hmm. Great question. So. Unfortunately, the answer is that when a new Congress convenes, all of the legislation of the past two years has expired and must be reintroduced with the exception of treaties. But I don’t know that that would stop this from happening necessarily, and I’m not sure what the law says. It may very well be a norm, which I think Trump proved don’t mean shit. So. So. Yeah, that’s a good question. I honestly like, I’m not a political expert. I think I’ve never seen it happen. And in general, the idea is that, you know, you have to start over and reintroduce things. And with a Republican House, they’re not going to reintroduc.
Mary Annaise Heglar Jack shit.
Amy Westervelt Anything that the previous two years did. But if a bill was already passed then I think it would move on to the Senate for a vote.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah.
Amy Westervelt So, yeah, maybe there’s some possibility there.
Mary Annaise Heglar Short answer is that our system of government is perfect. Flawless. Works great every single time. That’s what this boils down to here. Like great country we got here. All right next question is from an anonymous high schooler. Relatable. I’m a senior in high school living in Houston, Texas. I’m currently part of the Jewish youth climate movement. That’s wonderful. First of all, I would like to say that I’m so grateful for this podcast and everything it’s taught me and exposed me to. You’re both huge role models. Okay, this is way you’re being too nice, but thank you very much. I’m just going through the question, though. Okay. Now for the question. It’s actually a few questions. No, it. I have a decent understanding of how capitalism is fueling the climate crisis. And I know a lot of climate activists are anti-capitalist. But do you think it’s at all possible for us to seriously mitigate climate change under capitalism? If the answer is no, what does that mean for the climate movement? If the two are that deeply interconnected, where do we even go from here? Given that there is no example of a successful alternative to capitalism, and given how deeply entrenched capitalism is in our in incomprehensibly complex global society, and given that we have an incredibly limited amount of time to transform our systems before we hit a tipping point for climate change. If we cannot mitigate climate change under capitalism, what do we do? Okay. Okay. All right. That’s not even all the questions, but we’re going to stop there and deal with that. Yeah. So, I mean, look. There’s never been a successful alternative to capitalism. I don’t know about that, because I would say that societies in North America and in the global South, elsewhere existed just fine before capitalism showed up. And so I don’t think that they, you know, were were exploiting the planet for profit. They weren’t. They weren’t. I don’t even have to make that speculation. So, yeah, there are successful alternatives to capitalism, and human beings have a deep ability for ingenuity. And we are absolutely capable of creating something better. If we can create something this complex and this awful, we can create something complex and better. I absolutely believe in that. However, like if we I understand that we have a limited amount of time and there are very powerful forces that are against us doing that. So our business right now is to make as much positive change as we can under any given circumstances. Right. And this is no longer about just mitigating climate change, because climate change is here. This is about adapting to it. This is about reducing suffering. That’s really what what it’s all about is about creating a livable future and reducing suffering in order to do that. And so if we can’t reduce all suffering, we can’t eliminate suffering. Reducing it is still worth our time. So what do you think, Amy?
Amy Westervelt Well, a couple of things. A Yes. There are many examples of indigenous cultures that pre-date capitalism that were quite successful. And many of those cultures and approaches are still around. You know, yes, they have been in many cases dominated by capitalism. But but actually, like I don’t know, I look at the rights of nature movement as a really good example of kind of a shift to a different mindset. And like, I, I really the reason I find it so interesting is that it provides like a whole different decision making framework. So you could kind of superimpose it over almost any economy because you’re just valuing different things. And that’s, that’s true of capitalism too. Like, I think there’s this tendency to think that capitalism is only the kind of capitalism on steroids that the US has. And there are examples of sort of better forms of capitalism. There are also there’s also like a lot of of interesting research going on around, you know, what could an economy look like that just placed different things at the center, you know, versus GDP, for example. So in in some cases, you know, I guess maybe that wouldn’t still be capitalism, but you could still have like markets and competition and some of the things that are sort of hallmarks of capitalism. But in an economy that actually values, you know, clean air and clean water and people’s ability to live.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah.
Amy Westervelt Which seem like pretty critical inputs to any to any economy. But yeah, to your question about can we do anything about climate change under capitalism? Yes, of course we can.
Mary Annaise Heglar And we have.
Amy Westervelt Will it be the perfect solution? I don’t think so. Can it move us closer to the right solution and reduce suffering in the meantime? Yes. In terms of like where I see the most promise I really like, I do see actually quite a bit of optimism in the whole right’s a major thing which has been embraced by governments throughout South America at this point and in New Zealand and parts of Australia as well. It’s starting to actually be embraced by local communities in the US, in the U.S. it has a very interesting bipartisan appeal because it kind of like, I don’t know, it kind of plays to a lot of the, I don’t know, sort of individual freedoms and and like small government ideas of libertarians but while protecting ecosystems. So it’s to me like that’s the only thing I’ve seen proposed recently that’s actually being adopted. That is a huge departure from, from capitalism and is working. So yeah. And in that kind of a system like. You would evaluate like, you know, a wildly irresponsible lithium mine would be just as bad as, you know, an oil well that’s leaking oil all over the place. So I feel like that’s that’s important, too, because right now, what we’re seeing in a lot of cases is like. This thing that we’ve talked about a bunch on this show where you’re just kind of like swapping out inputs and not really changing the system in any real way. And I don’t think that that will ever get us all the way there.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah. I mean, I think it’s important to understand what the word mitigate means. Right? Like mitigate really kind of just means reduce or deal with. And so, yeah. Can we mitigate climate change on the capitalism? Yes. And we have mitigate climate change under under capitalism. Yeah. We’ve also exacerbated it under capitalism. So yeah, that’s why a lot of people don’t trust that shit. And so can we solve climate change under capitalism? I don’t think so. Can we you know, build a livable future under capitalism at this point? I’m very concerned about that because capitalism is all about exploitation. We’re running out of shit to exploit.
Amy Westervelt Thats right.
Mary Annaise Heglar And so.
Amy Westervelt Endless growth. I mean, like, I think thats the problem, too, is just like there’s no you can’t endlessly grow on a planet with finite resources.
Mary Annaise Heglar You just can’t. You know, it reminds me of what Antonio Yu has said on per episode with us about climate change and war, that there is no resource on earth that we can exploit to the degree that we’ve exploited fossil fuels. There just isn’t.
Amy Westervelt Right.
Mary Annaise Heglar So.
Amy Westervelt That’s right. Yeah.
Mary Annaise Heglar All right. Let’s get to the next part of this question.
Amy Westervelt Yeah, there’s more. Okay.
Mary Annaise Heglar And if you do think it’s possible for us to mitigate climate change under capitalism, or if it’s the only viable option we have, or we’re going to have to make it work, then how would that look different than green capitalism, which is so often regarded as a false solution? What would that world look like from a big picture economic standpoint? And is the climate movement wasting a time alienating potential supporters by being anti-capitalist?
Amy Westervelt Hmm. Okay. Okay. I think we already kind of. My answer is rise of nature into this. And I do not think that the climate movement is wasting his time being anti-capitalist. I think that, like, you know, this is a tired phrase, but it’s the one that’s coming to my mind. We have to be able to, like, walk and chew gum at the same time. I really the thing that I like get the most frustrated about within the climate movement is this like an either or mindset that like if you’re anti-capitalist, that means that you think we shouldn’t do anything until we replace capitalism. No. Like that is the goal that we’re marching towards. And along the way, we’re going to make incremental improvements within the system that we all live in right now. You know, like you don’t stop working towards change because your goal is larger, systemic change. Like you you move towards that larger systemic change.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah. I also wouldn’t agree that the climate movement is anti-capitalist.
Amy Westervelt That’s true.
Mary Annaise Heglar I think there are a lot of anti-capitalist in it. But is the whole movement anti-capitalist? No. And I think it would be a bad idea to alienate the socialists. I think it would be a bad idea to alienate the ants. I think that we can have room for all of these all of those people, too, including myself. And I think that the climate movement spent a whole lot of time being very, very pro capitalists. And where did that get us? Absolutely nowhere. We spent a whole lot of time trying to work within the system, work with the industry, work with, you know, the economy.
Amy Westervelt We’re still doing that. We’re still doing right.
Mary Annaise Heglar But like, that was the only thing really being offered by the by the climate movement, because we were trying to be calm, trying to be cool headed, trying to be pragmatic. And where did that get us? It got us absolutely fucking nowhere. So, yeah, sorry to because I’m out of high school or I’m sorry I’m not cutting at you. I’m cussing at the system. But yeah, like we it got us nowhere. So I think it’s time. I think it’s good to be more radical. I think it’s good to keep the end goal in sight because for the longest time we were so focused on incremental solutions and like natural gas as a bridge of fuel, and now it’s time to cross the bridge. And we can’t even talk about the bridge because the ultimate goal should have always been the abolition of fossil fuels. But we never said that out loud. And so now we get stuck at this midway point.
Amy Westervelt That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. For so long, people were really afraid to say that that was the goal. It was like, Oh, no, no, it’s. You know, I’m like, why? I don’t understand. I mean, even at the even at COP right. They still can’t say that out loud. That’s still not in the agreements coming out of the international climate negotiating summit. Mm hmm. They can agree to say that the goal is to get off of fossil fuels. That’s fucking crazy.
Mary Annaise Heglar It is
Amy Westervelt That is totally ridiculous. And a big part of the reason for that is that, you know, oil companies and oil states continue to have way more power and way more influence than they should have at all of these things. Right. So, like, I think that, like, I think that that like there are I would like to see the sort of the be anti-capitalist and socialist wings of the climate movement like focus a little bit on, um, like a, like getting rid of the most egregious ways that capitalism shows up in the climate space as like step one. And to me that is getting fossil fuel executives the fuck out of the IPCC and the Conference of the Parties. They should have absolutely no role in climate negotiations, period. That is such a fucking low bar. And like it’s getting worse right now.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah.
Amy Westervelt So yeah, I think that like, you know, A., no, it’s not bad for people to in the climate movement to be talking about capitalism, to be talking about wanting to get away from capitalism. None of those things are bad. I would like to see the movement sort of focus on on actually like getting rid of corporate influence.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah. Yeah. Same. Okay, next question. I was curious how Amy decided to move to Costa Rica. Do you speak the language? Does your partner work there or remote job? Any resources you used to research before making the move? Also, I’m so incredibly sorry. If it’s not Amy, it’s Amy. Don’t worry. More contact. My husband is desperate to be an expat. Someplace warm. It doesn’t fit this season of our lives for so many logistical reasons. But I don’t even know where to start to figure out how we could move toward a plan for the future. Really appreciate the conversation and discussions on your podcast and also the corny jokes. Okay, first of all, my jokes are fucking brilliant. All right? This is this is high class humor coming your way. Very high brow. I’m sorry if that’s like over your head and it comes across. It’s corny, but this is like grade-A motherfucking humor over here. I’ve been practicing in the mirror since I was five years old. All right Amy, why’d you move to Costa Rica?
Amy Westervelt Lots of reasons. I’ve been thinking about leaving the US pretty much since they started arresting journalists at pipeline protests. That was the line.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yup.
Amy Westervelt I was like, hmmm.
Mary Annaise Heglar That’ll do it.
Amy Westervelt This is a red flag, a giant red flag. And my husband is not from the US, he’s actually from Scotland. So we thought about moving there because that would be very straightforward and easy. But I speak Spanish.
Mary Annaise Heglar And cold.
Amy Westervelt And cold. Yeah, I speak Spanish, my kids speak Spanish. My dad was Mexican, so I was like, Oh, it’d be cool if we moved somewhere that people speak Spanish because the kids had been going to like a bilingual school for a while, but they hadn’t lived somewhere where people speak Spanish. So I felt like it was, you know, it’d be cool for for it to get solidified. And then my husband had actually worked in Mexico and in Spain and had learned like quite a bit of Spanish, but always felt like he wished he knew more. So we thought, okay, maybe a Spanish speaking country. And then we thought about Mexico. But then, you know, there were there were a lot of issues happening in Mexico at the time. And I was like, I don’t know. And I’m also not sure where in Mexico. And then we looked at Central America and South America, and Costa Rica is super, super stable and has like kind of it’s like the easiest place to work remotely from because they have super fast internet and like pretty stable power and all those things.
Mary Annaise Heglar It’s true. Amy’s internet got faster after she moved.
Amy Westervelt It did it did it got faster. Yeah. Yeah. So, but then, I mean, honestly, we were kind of like maybe Costa Rica and then we watched a shitload of House Hunters International on Costa Rica.
Clip We want to do a yoga business with yoga retreats. This is a very big place for yoga. And people always think of Costa Rica. They think of like peace and relaxing.
Amy Westervelt And then we came here for like ten days last December and we were like, Yeah. This is it. Let’s do it. And that was it. Like with by July we moved. So, so yeah, we kind of, I don’t know, I feel like it requires a little bit of like just being ready to kind of jump and go for it and, and we also both work remotely. So that’s very key because it was like, well, if we work remotely, we can technically live anywhere. Costa Rica also has very friendly immigration policies, so there are lots of different types of visas you can get. You can also like I know people that have lived here for years and they just leave the country every 90 days to get their visa renewed. Like they’ve been living here for five years, you know? So, yeah.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah.
Amy Westervelt Those are all the reasons. Oh, but like the main kind of like the straw that broke the camel’s back was I got a notice from my kids school saying that they were going to have to be doing active shooter drills the next year. And I was like, ugh no, actually, I’m not participating in that part.
Mary Annaise Heglar Hard pass.
Amy Westervelt Literally. Literally like no other place would they have to be shooting. So let’s pick any other place to be.
Mary Annaise Heglar Well, cue dad joke. Pisces and alligators get along really well.
Guest Oh, jeez.
Guest That makes you. I think being a Pisces makes you an *bleep*. Every pisces in the world is an *bleep* .
Guest That’s it. That’s it.
Guest New, new study. I’m going to piss off my editors as much as possible.
Mary Annaise Heglar Rihana you feel good about potatoes, right?
Guest I mean, I’m from the Midwest. Of course, I love a potato.
Mary Annaise Heglar You should also love lentils being from the Midwest but anyway, what disease is the biggest killer of potatoes?
Guest Um. I’m trying to think of a play on, like, bird flu but can’t come up with anything. Hey. ugh.
Mary Annaise Heglar You give up?
Guest Or covid. No, I don’t know.
Mary Annaise Heglar Tuberculosis.
Amy Westervelt That’s actually really good. Okay. I have a really important question for you.
Mary Annaise Heglar Oh, my God.
Amy Westervelt And that is.
Mary Annaise Heglar Oh my God.
Amy Westervelt It’s happening, Mary. How do philosophy students feel when they fail an exam on empiricism?
Mary Annaise Heglar Amy, I am so proud of you for this. At the same time that I’m just, like, cringing so hard.
Femi Oh, you know, I don’t think obviously nobody likes to fail anything, but, you know, I think students are very confused when they don’t do well in philosophy. You know, isn’t it isn’t it just vibes at the end of the day, vibes and questions.
Amy Westervelt Just what I how I feel about this.
Femi Actually, that’s most of it, you know, but there are, you know, arguments and such.
Amy Westervelt Femi, the correct answer here is humiliated.
Femi You know? You know, that’s on me about something that’s really on me, you know?
Mary Annaise Heglar Okay. We’ve only got a few more questions left. We unfortunately weren’t able to get to all of them. There were more questions about why we send our hate mail to Brian Kahn. Apparently a lot of people asked that so go back and listen to that Brian Kahn episode from season two and let’s go with this. The next one is very specifically for me from Josh. How will we stop octopuses from becoming our alien overlords?
Mary Annaise Heglar Josh?
Amy Westervelt Josh, we can’t.
Mary Annaise Heglar Josh, honey.
Amy Westervelt Nothing we can do about it.
Mary Annaise Heglar Sweetheart. He’s a sweet, sweet, sweet summer child. There is nothing you can do to stop the octopi from becoming your alien overlords. If happen, it’s here. They’ve been here. They were here before you were born? Before I was born. They’ve been here since the beginning of time. Okay, so just bow down. That’s all I got for you. Bow down and don’t eat them. I think that I have done zero research on this, but everyone who’s ever gotten abducted by aliens has eaten an octopus. Every single one of them. I can say that emphatically, but not empirically. Also, I’m I’m just getting a note from our producer that octopuses do not like to be called octopi. They presented it. I’m tips and we’ll learn from my way. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry ya’ll.
Amy Westervelt Yeah. Just surrender, Josh.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah. No.
Amy Westervelt Sweet, sweet surrender.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah, it’s a wrap. Okay, next question. I have one question for the mailbag. Fuck. Marry, kill. Exxon, BP, Chevron.
Amy Westervelt So good. It’s so good.
Mary Annaise Heglar Okay. So.
Amy Westervelt Oh, my God.
Mary Annaise Heglar . Okay.
Amy Westervelt Mary, you want to go first?
Mary Annaise Heglar No.
Amy Westervelt Well, I have, like, a very elaborate theory about the personalities behind these oil companies, so I feel like. Okay. I think that I would fuck Exxon. Marry BP and kill Chevron. And here’s why. Exxon is just like unapologetically Exxon. And I don’t know. I guess. There’s something attractive about that. I’m like I’m like, okay. Actually, Exxon. Is not pretending to be anything other than what they are. They’re just terrible.
Mary Annaise Heglar That’s why they blocked me on Twitter.
Amy Westervelt Well, yeah. I guess maybe. Maybe this is me admitting that I like bad boys.
Mary Annaise Heglar Wow. Wow.
Amy Westervelt BP, like, at least. They’re trying, you know, and. And they have an accent. So.
Mary Annaise Heglar Wait. What did you say you would do with BP?
Amy Westervelt I said I said I would marry them.
Mary Annaise Heglar Aw.
Amy Westervelt Yeah. And Chevron, I would kill because I think like Chevron to me is actually maybe the worst because they they try to like, pretend that they’re that they’re like nice because they’re in the Bay Area. They feel like they have to like give lip service to, you know, climate and racial equity and all of these things. But like behind the scenes, they’re like, they’re terrible. And they also like never let any fight go. They’re the worst. So, yeah. Kill them.
Mary Annaise Heglar Okay. Okay.
Amy Westervelt Yeah.
Mary Annaise Heglar I would I believe I would fuck Chevron and then kill them like while they’re sleeping that night. I would kill Exxon because they blocked me on Twitter. I also I would kill them slow, though, like I’d make a game out of it. I would hunt them for sport in the woods.
Amy Westervelt Yeah.
Mary Annaise Heglar No, no, it wouldn’t take years it’d take a couple of weeks in a bunker. It would get real medieval before they die.
Amy Westervelt Mmhmm.
Mary Annaise Heglar And I would marry BP and then kill them and take all of their money.
Amy Westervelt Oh, that’s good. Yeah, I like that.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah.
Amy Westervelt Mm.
Mary Annaise Heglar So I’m killing all of them. There’s just two that I’m going to fuck or marry first.
Amy Westervelt Um, I think I can’t believe that we’re both going to marry BP.
Mary Annaise Heglar But I’m going to kill BP. You’re just going to stay married to him like a simp?
Amy Westervelt No, I would definitely kill them. I would poison them slowly over time. I feel like it’s. I think it’s just because of our affinity for BP deez nuts.
Mary Annaise Heglar Mm hmm. And actually, we never talked about that on the show. It’s true.
Mary Annaise Heglar So hot take is me enemies lovechild, BP these nuts was our rage child.
Amy Westervelt Yeah.
Mary Annaise Heglar And we lost both of them this year.
Amy Westervelt Aww.
Mary Annaise Heglar I know. I know. So, BP, these nuts was our Twitter account that we created back in April of this year to troll BP for the BP oil spill on the anniversary of the oil spill. And a lot of people thought that we created it. When Elon Musk bought Twitter, we didn’t. It predated Elon Musk by Twitter. But with Elon Musk was like, you can buy a blue checkmark we were like, absolutely, we want to do that.
Amy Westervelt Yes, yes, definitely. Definitely worth the $8. Thanks Elon.
Mary Annaise Heglar Absolutely worth the $8. And we trolled the living shit out of them with a blue check for like five glorious hours before I got there. And, you know, there’s not a day that goes by that we don’t think about our sweet child. BP These nutz taken from us way too soon and gone out in a blaze of glory. So you know.
Amy Westervelt My favorite part of that Twitter profile was the bio that was just net zero deez nuts.
Mary Annaise Heglar Also. How many people would get into genuine arguments with an account name BP deez nuts.
Amy Westervelt Like oh my God, yes. I had I had like an actual source of mine arguing with BP deez nuts and I had to DM him and be like, It’s me.
Mary Annaise Heglar It’s a parody, hun.
Amy Westervelt This is a parody. He’s like, Wow, really good though, because it’s just like them.
Mary Annaise Heglar Right? What are you going to do this Earth Day to reduce your. So yeah, I still have a screenshot of that text message when Amy was like, Hey, you want to buy a blue check for BP deez nuts and I was like, Absolutely. I’m very proud for that to be part of the hot take legacy and you know, in the future whenever you miss hot take get online and troll a fossil fuel company. And we’ll know that you’re thinking of us.
Amy Westervelt Yeah.
Mary Annaise Heglar If that can be our legacy to the world, then I’m happy with that.
Amy Westervelt Absolutely. Also, I am very proud of the fact that Earther actually ran a memorial profile of BP deez nuts.
Mary Annaise Heglar You know, one of the things that I in all seriousness, that I think we really accomplished with this show, with this show, was pulling the veil back on fossil fuel companies and revealing them as the villains in this story. Because just for so long and I’ve said this before, climate change has been framed as not a victimless crime, but a villainous crime. And I think that, you know, while we might all be the victims of climate change, we can also be the heroes of this story. And so every time you stand up to a fossil fuel company, you are reframing your role in the story as going from the victim to the hero.
Amy Westervelt Right. That’s right.
Mary Annaise Heglar So, yeah. Also fuck BP.
Amy Westervelt Well or marry them.
Amy Westervelt I’m just kidding.
Mary Annaise Heglar Okay. You don’t have to consummate the marriage. Oh, fuck who? I guess. Wait. No, I said I’d fuck Chevron, right? Yeah. I don’t know. Fuck. All good. Really true. Fuck all of them. Shell two shell can get it to Conoco Phillips. So tell all of ya’ll. The one that, like, actually set the ocean on fire. Fuck them too.
Amy Westervelt That’s right.
Mary Annaise Heglar The Saudi Aramco. Fuck them too all of em.
Amy Westervelt Fuck them, too. That’s right. Schlumberger.
Mary Annaise Heglar I don’t even know who that is but fuck em. American Petroleum Institute. Fuck you to death.
Amy Westervelt Yes, definitely. Definitely.
Amy Westervelt The Cokes suck a cock. I’m just kidding.
Mary Annaise Heglar Kick rocks, kick, rocks. All of y’all. All y’all.
Amy Westervelt Yeah, all of them.
Mary Annaise Heglar And on that note.
Amy Westervelt That’s a really good note to end on.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah. We love y’all. Thank you so much for supporting the show.
Amy Westervelt Thank you.
Sara So um, Drew, where do sheep go on vacation?
Drew Oh, thank you so much. I’m so glad we’re doing jokes.
Mary Annaise Heglar I did a joke a minute ago.
Drew Oh, that was a. That was a joke.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah, that was over your head.
Drew Alright. Okay. That was over my head?. Where do sheep go on vacation? Yeah. Uh, shear hammas? I don’t know. The shore, the shore. the shore?
Sara Oh, my gosh. You were so close. They go to the Baaaahaaammmas.
Drew I was really close. Fuck
Mary Annaise Heglar I feel like you get honorary airborne.
Mary Annaise Heglar Amazing.
Amy Westervelt I love how much Sara Sneath put into that delivery too.
Mary Annaise Heglar Yeah.
Amy Westervelt So good.
Mary Annaise Heglar I cheat for sweets. I also sometimes will cheat for spite. So over. There’s not much I won’t do for spite but over Thanksgiving I ate some of the Thanksgiving turkey so that my mother was mad at my brother and my brother was mad at my mother.
Sara I love that. I love it.
Mary Annaise Heglar It made me a little sick, but you know what? Worth it. Okay. What do you call a laughing jar of mayonnaise? LM-ayo.
Guest Everyone’s heard it here.
Mary Annaise Heglar So a man threw a jive mayonnaise at me earlier, and I was like, what the hell, man?
Guest You you’re. You’re canceled. I’ve canceled you both.
Mary Annaise Heglar No, wait. But what did the mayonnaise say when the refrigerator door was opened?
Guest Um, I don’t know. I I’m bad at jokes, and I hate mayonaisse. So neither are engendering me to.
Mary Annaise Heglar Close the door. I’m dressing.
Guest Ugggh
Mary Annaise Heglar Speaking of eggs. I’m so tired from eating mayonnaise all day. I’m eggghausted.
Guest I’m leaving.
Mary Annaise Heglar Hot take is a Crooked Media production.
Amy Westervelt It’s produced by Ray Pang and mixed and edited by Jordan Kantor.
Mary Annaise Heglar Our music is by Vasilis Fotopoulos. Leo Duran is our senior producer.
Amy Westervelt And our executive producers are Mary Annaise Heglar, Michael Martinez and me. Amy Westervelt.
Mary Annaise Heglar Special thanks to Sandy Girard. Ari Schwartz, Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landes for production support and to Amelia Montooth for digital support.
Amy Westervelt You can follow the show on Twitter at Real Hot Take and subscribe to Crooked Media’s video channel at YouTube.com slash crooked media.
[AD]
