You are condemned to be free, and yet how much responsibility do you bear for the structures you inhabit? Do your individual consumer choices matter, or is it some distant political economy? Should we enjoy our time in nature on snowmobiles, or is that just one more bootprint on the road to hypocritical perdition? Do you need to be perfect in order to be an activist?
In this episode, Nori cofounder Ross Kenyon, and Thanks-A-Ton cofounder Siobhan Montoya Lavender, discuss the new short film from Protect Our Winters and professional skier Amy Engerbretson, The Hypocrite.
In this wide-ranging discussion, Amy discusses why she made The Hypocrite, which deals with how she went from climate ignorance, through the guilt of her carbon footprint and that of skiing, and became an imperfect climate advocate.
She emphasizes the importance of systemic solutions over individual perfectionism, revealing the often-paralyzing effects of aiming for personal purity in environmental activism. The film aims to inspire action by showcasing the power of collective efforts in outdoor communities, urging listeners to engage civically beyond mere personal adjustments, while also discussing whether duty must be done for its own sakes, regardless of how big of an impact it might have.
The session concludes with Amy's thoughts on political will as the paramount force for climate change mitigation, encouragement for involvement with organizations like Protect Our Winters, and the value of messy, imperfect advocacy.
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Full Transcript
Alexsandra Guerra: You’re listening to the Reversing Climate Change podcast by the team at Nori, the carbon removal marketplace. This is a show about the innovators and entrepreneurs developing solutions to climate change.
Ross Kenyon: Okay, we’ve already started the show, kind of, as you can hear. I’m Ross Kenyon. I’m one of the co-founders of the Nori Carbon Removal Marketplace based in Seattle, Washington. Here with Siobhan Montoya-Lavender, who’s one of the founders of Thanks a Ton, longtime air miner, carbon remover, carbon remover personality. I don’t know. Have you been described as a personality before?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: This is a first. This is a first for me. I’ll take it.
Ross Kenyon: I keep my notes in front of me. This is what happens. Okay.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Joining us today is Amy Inger Bretzen, and she’s a professional skier, a host, a documentarian who recently created the film The Hypocrite, which explores the interplay between our own individual actions and systemic change when it comes to climate impact. Welcome, Amy.
Amie Engerbretson: Hi. Thank you for having me. I appreciate being on the show.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, we’re glad to have you. We actually had the whole office at Nori watch The Hypocrite. I made a catered lunch preparing for the Tamar Adler podcast. Everyone ate lamb and watched you call yourself a hypocrite.
Amie Engerbretson: Sounds like a hypocritical lunch.
Ross Kenyon: Very much was. I really like the tone of it. I think people should probably start with the As a person who feels guilty quite often and someone who’s intellectually attracted to Christianity, I like self-flagellation. I like feeling guilty. I like feeling like a hypocrite in a weird, self-aggrandizing kind of way. It feels good in a way, the act of contrition. It’s like, I don’t know, how did you feel about making it? Why did you do it? I respect that you framed it this way, but it must have been a hard thing to call yourself.
Amie Engerbretson: Yeah, I mean... That question of why I made this film has been coming up a lot lately. And I guess like one of the answers is insanity. But I have been, so I’m a professional skier. I’m a big mountain skier. And that entails traveling quite constantly to find snow. It entails riding chairlifts. It definitely entails heli skiing now and then. And recently in my career, it entails using the use of a snowmobile for a lot of access for a lot of the filming we do. But also being a professional skier, Living in the mountains, growing up in the mountains, traveling to the mountains of the world, spending time in Alaska, spending time around glaciers, you know, living in the Sierras with the cumbersome smoke and wildfire situation.
Like the realities of climate change have not, they’ve been very present in my life, really obvious. And I kind of am one of those people who for a long time, you know, I knew this was happening and I kind of felt like I was contributing to it, but it must not have been that bad. Or I was just kind of scared to like activate. And like if you would have met me like six years ago, if you told me like, hey, in the future, you’re going to call yourself a climate advocate, I would have like literally gone, ick, like, no, not me.
I’m not like a sciencey person. I’m not a political person. And more than anything, I’m not a perfect person. You know, I had this idea that to Care about the environment. You had to be this really perfect thing that I had in my mind of what a perfect environment else looked like. And I wasn’t that. And not only that, when you’re a professional athlete and you have a platform, that’s what everyone likes to say. I was starting to feel pressure to use my platform for good, but then again, still not feeling good enough to do so.
I’m not perfect. I wasn’t ready to give up my ski career. I wasn’t ready to become a foot-powered only athlete. I was just very conflicted about that. I felt like I just had to be quiet and keep my head down and not talk about the issue, even though I saw it happening. I cared about it. I was really concerned. The story really begins with my coming to being an advocate first. I kind of had to get into that space before I could make a film like this. It was around 2016 when I saw my world changing and I saw leadership changing in a way that freaked me out where I kind of just had this to go to the Christian reference, like this kind of come to Jesus moment of like, okay, Amy, like you are somebody who is influential in your community.
You’re constantly influencing people to buy more skis or go skiing here, do all these things. Like you need to also counteract that with like some good and like you need to kind of. Face this fear and intimidation you have and see what your role is here. And that’s when I started getting pretty activated with this company, Protect Our Winners, that they are this really cool organization kind of organizing in the outdoor space for climate action. And from there, it was like kind of this snowball effect for lack of a better term.
The more I learned about what was happening with our climate, A, but more like what was happening to obstruct something being done about it. And the more I was learning about why we were thinking the way we were thinking and why things were not working or working the way they were, I just kept having these aha moments and being really empowered. And I was getting way down this path of being like a climate advocate. But at the same time, I was getting more and more into snowmobiling and my ski career was Not dwindling.
It was progressing and I’m traveling more and using helicopters more. And so I had this like life where I was like felt so hypocritical because it’s not just that like my life as an individual was potentially carbon intensive. It was that I was glorifying it publicly. Yeah. To all these people that followed me that watch the movies I’m in, you know, a lot of what I do is make these ski movies that get you all hyped up at the beginning of the season to go heli skiing in Alaska, you know?
So it’s even worse than just me personally going heli skiing. It’s me glorifying. And so I had the idea for the film rolling around in my head for like four years. And it took me about that long to essentially muster up the confidence to Dive in to the problem and make the movie. And so the film got started. I applied for a grant with Protect Our Winters in the spring of 2022. And then the fall of 2022, I got word that I received the grant. And there was like this huge part of me was like, oh, my God, now I have to make this movie.
What did I sign myself for? So, yeah, I mean, it’s I think I wanted to make the film because I kind of wanted others to come on this journey with me of learning that potentially the way I was thinking, the way I was feeling that was causing me to be so kind of just paralyzed on the whole situation or apathetic about the whole situation. Like a lot of the ways I was thinking and feeling turns out of the product of millions, if not billions of advertising dollars that were influencing how the public was thinking about these problems.
To me, the more I learned about the issues, why we were the way we were and what the potential for change was, the more inspired I got. So I wanted to make a film that would hopefully bring people like along that same journey and especially people in my community. And when I say my community, I kind of mean the ski and snowboard world. But what I really mean is like the outdoor community, like everybody that participates in outdoor sports.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I love that. OK, I have I have a question for you to kind of frame The backdrop of this documentary and your role in it. You’re a skier. Here we are. We’re recording this right now. Second half of winter. It’s the season, you know, in the Northern Hemisphere anyways. And could you kind of paint us a picture of what a professional day looks like for you and kind of what it means to you and why you choose this?
Amie Engerbretson: Yeah. So I am talking to you guys from Lake Tahoe, California, and we are in between storms right now. We had a big storm last week and we have a huge storm coming this week, which everybody’s like, it’s snowing, there’s no climate change. And obviously climate’s not weather, but these extreme weather events like we’ve been having, especially here where I live in Tahoe, just growing up here, I’ve seen the way our winters work so change so much the length of our winters. The fluctuating snow lines, the intensity of winds, what that does to avalanche cycles, like it’s crazy.
But yeah, for me as a big mountain skier, I don’t do the Olympics or race skates. There are big mountain competitions that I did when I was younger, but those are for young people with young knees. I’m by no means old, but those things take a toll on you for sure. And so I spend my winter making films about skiing or doing magazine articles and things like that. And then I work really closely with my sponsors on product development, a lot of product testing and product development. And like a mid-winter day today was a training day and an admin day, a lot of computer work and professional skiing, believe it or not.
But coming up here with this storm cycle, you know, A lot of my days, like a film day will be, you know, up at about 4 a. m. and getting the gear together, usually out the door well before the light comes out and then dealing with, you know, managing all the hazards of the day. Pay very close attention to weather and avalanche conditions. I do a lot of my work in the backcountry, which is outside the bounds of a ski resort, sometimes hiking to it, sometimes using my snowmobile to get to it, sometimes using a helicopter, but usually that’s what I’m in up in Canada or in Alaska.
And so it’s about you kind of usually have a crew of about two to three athletes. You have a couple filmers, maybe a photographer, and you usually have a pretty set plan before the day where you Have some objectives, you know, a lot like what I’m going to do tomorrow, for example, knowing there’s a big storm coming in. I’m going to go out my snowmobile and I’m going to do some reconnaissance work. So I’m going to go out to some of the zones. I want to film. I’m going to see what the snow is looking like, how filled in things are, if there’s any, um, Avalanche concerns to be worried about.
And so there’s a lot of planning. If you go watch any of my movies or anything like that, you just see this glorious, oh my God, she’s always just skiing pow and jumping off cliffs, but there’s a lot of work that goes into it. And then those days in the field when we’re filming, usually really long days, usually out of the house well before the sun comes up and back to the house way after the sun’s down. We work as a team out there. We spend a lot of time assessing the safety of situations.
I know people are like, you’re just fling yourself off everything. And it’s like, well, no, it’s a lot of really calculated decision making and things to take into account. But I like to say like in the winter this time of year, like even when you’re trying to schedule this podcast, it’s like, Well, my life is dominated by Mother Nature. And so it’s really hard for me to make plans outside the five-day window because that’s when the weather forecast gets fairly reliable to a point. And so... So I’ve been this professional skier for about 15 some odd years now.
I grew up here in Lake Tahoe. My dad was a professional skier in the 90s and the late 80s. And then he became a filmer and photographer in the ski space and then went on to other spaces. And so growing up somewhere like Tahoe, like to a lot of people being like a professional skier sounds really cool and interesting. But around here, it’s just like run of the mill, like I’m in the family business, basically. So it’s been kind of my My whole life, I’m not sure what keeps me coming back to it.
I think that there’s this amazing gift that I get in this freedom of exploring my own limits and boundaries and what’s possible for me that I think is really cool. And I get to do it in a really visceral, physical way, which I think every person in their life has an experience of pushing their boundaries and their limits. But when you get to be... An athlete working in the elements, in Mother Nature, in the mountains, with your body, like it’s just, you know, there’s a lot of disappointment and heartbreak that comes with it for sure.
Like I often say no to things more than I say yes. And there’s a lot of fear and I’ve had some really bad accidents in my career. There’s also that exhilarating feeling when things do line up and you’re getting to feel that true expression of yourself in an environment that’s outside of your control. It’s a freedom that I’ve never experienced in any other walk of life. But I think maybe I was just raised to be addicted to it. So here I am.
Ross Kenyon: Are there are there people I’m sure there are plenty of professional winter sports athletes who don’t think about this at all. Are there people who are very strict about what they will allow themselves to do in with a climate change perspective? Are there some that like maybe maybe they look at you and say, that’s cool that you’re a hypocrite, but you could also just get an electric snowmobile, which might not exist yet or whatever. Or maybe just cut out helicopters. Like, I don’t know, do you face, sorry to put it directionally like this, but do you face leftward pressure on climate activism from your peers?
Is there anyone out there like that who’s still nudging?
Amie Engerbretson: Absolutely. And I think with like releasing the film and I kind of foresaw this happening that I feel like we’re actually feeling the most pressure from like a far left perspective on climate. Climate and environmentalism and like that more traditional approach. And there was definitely like a big movement with a lot of – with Protect Our Winners in general, but a lot of professional athletes, you know, in the 2010s of like declaring yourself a foot-powered only athlete and staying local and not traveling – And I even have a friend who’s a professional snowboarder here in the Tahoe area, Tim Eddy.
And he like went as far as to like give up riding resort. He moved to a cabin totally off grid. They were completely vegan. Like he was doing the whole thing. And again, veganism and vegetarianism is very prevalent like in the culture. And I think there’s a lot of people And it’s not just other athletes, it’s like brands too. Like I recently switched sponsors for outerwear this year. And even with brands, they’re like, oh, well, we’re really focusing on sustainability. So we don’t sign athletes that use snowmobiles or go heli skiing, or if they do, we don’t show it.
And so it’s definitely a big thing that’s been present in the industry. For a long time, kind of in the core of it, I would say, like with the pros and the industry people. And I think that’s why for a long time, I was very hesitant to really put my hat in the ring and get And for the record, I can’t wait till we have a functional mountain electric sled. They do have e-sleds out. You’re seeing a lot of resorts switch over their resort fleets to e-sleds like for during the X Games, for example, which is a big freestyle competition in Aspen.
All of the snowmobiles used for that were electric. That technology is coming, right? It’s not there for the kind of snowmobile that I use to access the mountains the way I do. But it’s not that I am anti those things at all. And it’s not that I – I think one of the things we’re seeing with the film is this potential criticism of like, oh, I actually don’t care about the carbon I burn. I actually absolutely do. I really, really do. And I can’t wait until there’s a time where I can – Make some life choices that are reasonable to affect that change.
Right now, a lot of those options, for example, a functional EV in the mountains isn’t in my price range. I drive a 15-year-old Subaru. So, you know, I think that what I kind of learned is that, and even through like that guy, Tim, the snowboarder’s experience, what he even learned and was really affecting to talk to him about is that If I go totally off grid and live my life in a cave, that’s great. I am affecting my carbon input, but I’m not affecting my sphere of influence in the same way that I could be if I continue on with my career as a professional athlete and being mindful about it.
I’m not just like, oh, I’m going to recklessly burn as much carbon as possible. It’s just, you know, I don’t feel healthy as a vegetarian. I don’t. And I also just know that so many of these things, when you look at the grander scale of the changes and the things that need to happen to make a big impact, a lot of those things aren’t really what’s moving the needle. And that pressure to be so perfect and fit in that box is what keeps a lot of people out of the club of advocating for it and pushing.
And POW has this concept that I talk about in the film of the outdoor state. And it’s that if you round up all the people in the US that participate in outdoor recreation, You get a number of well over 50 million people, but we’re using 50 million as like our benchmark, right? And the idea is that if that whole community could unify around action on climate, that we would have this amazing political juggernaut that could totally go up against these things that we think are behemoths, like the fossil fuel industry.
The reality is that... The outdoor industry and the big, big net here. I’m talking about hook and bullet. I’m talking about camping. I’m not talking about ball sports, but like all outdoor rec. That industry contributes annually to the GDP double what the fossil fuel industry extraction portion of it contributes to the GDP. So we think like the fossil fuel industry is this huge, unpenetrable industry. And the outdoor industry, the part of the industry that I’m from, that I’m a part of, that I influence is actually a bigger industry. It’s actually bigger than the pharmaceutical industry as well.
And so I think that When we are constantly telling people like do less, be less, it’s really hard because the other reality is that this idea of Thinking about or affecting your individual carbon footprint is such a privilege that’s very much only available to a certain class of person in a certain walk of life. And it’s absolutely not available to the people that are going to be very disproportionately affected by climate change. So we need those solutions to be equitable and systemic so that everybody has access to them, not just this white privileged woman in a mountain town, you know.
Ross Kenyon: So in watching the film, you talked to Naomi Oreskes about this, about how the idea of the carbon footprint was a PR campaign by oil and gas. And I think some people might experience the telling of that as a way of saying, I don’t need to try. But I think a lot of environmentalists, they want to feel and they want to expect of their peers that you are trying, even if Obviously, individually, what you do, if you live or die, climate change is going to happen or not happen. And it doesn’t really matter because it’s so much bigger than any one person.
But they almost want to see the thing happen in your heart. And so it might make people frustrated because you might not be doing as much as you can, even though the result will not impact anything, but are sort of pointing the blame in a different direction. And I think it’s because... It isn’t just about solving climate change to some of these people. I think it all is almost like a spiritually transformative moment or that’s what they want to see. And you’re denying that to them. Siobhan, do you agree with me?
I feel like, am I just like, this is so speculative.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: It’s speculative. First of all, I just want to point out that the way you framed it was maybe questioning whether or not like where footprints came from. It’s a very known fact. I think sometimes it gets swept under the rug, but within climate communities, I think it’s A pretty known fact that yes, the concept of calculating your own footprint was developed by BP, British Petroleum. And yeah, I think there’s been a thousand think pieces penned on this, but that I think the consensus is it was to deviate attention, right? It was to deviate attention away from the fossil fuel industry on to personal responsibility.
So I think this is a topic that’s been going on since that happened, right? Consumer demand was a big thing that people talked about, you know, and how that actually does impact systemic change, even though it is an individual decision. But then everyone’s like, but at the end of the day, like we live in a carbonized world, right? We live in a carbonized world where we don’t have choices. There was a guy in your film. Who said, yes, he said he’s like, I’m pissed that I’m pissed that this is my only option.
Like this thing that brings me so much joy and sustenance in life. This is my only option. There’s a future we can envision where there are different options. I’m curious to Ross’s point though, I think there is almost this, we see this in all sorts of environmental communities, almost like a, like a tithing, do you think Ross or like this idea that like independent of the results almost.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I’m curious if your criticism that you received before the film Was higher or lower? I mean, the film’s, I guess, just coming out. So it’s still new in the zeitgeist. But I’m curious if the criticism is higher or lower or like where you think the criticism came from. Was it mostly online? Was it face-to-face? Where were people talking about this?
Amie Engerbretson: Yeah. Well, yeah. So the film has been publicly released for about a week now. So we’re still gathering all of that. And definitely – The majority of the criticism is very clearly from people, not just online, but specifically on social media, who very clearly haven’t watched the film. And that’s just the reality of social media that we live in, right?
Ross Kenyon: The earnest film, too. Like, I feel like I’ve been calling it this and discussing it in this way is supposed to diffuse some of this, one would hope. It doesn’t seem like it worked, though.
Amie Engerbretson: I think it is diffusing some of it. I think that... I think to your point of like, there is this like identity. I mean, let’s first start with this. It’s a both and situation. It’s not a this or that. It is a both and. We need systemic changes and we as individuals have to live examined lives and adjust our lives accordingly. There’s not reasonable solutions to make all these better solutions. Choices from right now. I believe that they exist out there. And with redirection of subsidies and funding and research and emphasis, we can create those solutions and those options to make better choices from.
So it’s not an either or, it’s definitely a yes and. And I’m never saying that every little ounce of carbon absolutely matters. It’s just about looking at where you can have the biggest effect, you know, and that’s like as individuals, you know, maybe not professional athletes like me with Instagram followers and the ability to make movies, but like we’re all part of communities. We’re all part of local governments. We’re all part of all of these systems that we touch that I think it’s not. Popular to activate on. And I think when you talk to like the criticism we’re getting from kind of what I’m calling maybe more of like a traditional environmentalist perspective.
I don’t know if this is the right word for it, but this is what I’m starting to feel is that I think there is quite a bit of like ego wrapped into it and identity. And like so much of the polarization in our world is wrapped up in identities being wrapped up in something that like doesn’t even mean the same thing that it used to. Especially when you look at political parties and stuff. And so I think it is hard to challenge someone’s identity, right? Because then you’re challenging someone’s ego in a way, which is always going to be touchy.
But I do believe that the person that is maybe judging a motorized recreational user, I think that judgment is... is still pandering to what the fossil fuel industry kind of wants us to do. Like, I think a good example. So my film kind of uses the example of the foot powered ski industry versus the snowmobile motorized community. And I think those kind of rifts exist in a lot of different ways. And that’s just the example that I’m a part of. And so I’m using that as like the paintbrush for this bigger issue, because obviously the issue is definitely not snowmobiles.
We could eradicate snowmobiles and really wouldn’t make a difference. But that like that judgment, you know, we always I think the fossil fuel industry does want us to be so busy fighting about who gets to use the forest that we don’t notice that the forest is burning down, right? And there’s this person that’s directing that. I mean, there’s a lot of stats that we had worked up through the film. One of them that’s really amazing is you would have to live 58 million years as an individual to emit in one lifetime what Shell emitted in 2023 alone.
When you start comparing, and I went through my Carbon calculations of myself where I compared my carbon footprint in this last year of being a professional athlete and making this film and flying to Europe using a snowmobile going on one heli trip and my carbon footprint was actually Half the size of the average ski town resident carbon footprint. And it was only one ton of carbon higher than the average American’s annual carbon footprint. But I compared that. So that number was 27 tonnes of metric tonnes of carbon. I compared that number to the carbon reduction that will exist in one year of the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, which was 5 billion.
And so you’re comparing these numbers like I’m comparing 27 to 5 billion, you know, and even when we scale that, like it’s not Comparable, and I think another really interesting stat I found that we weren’t able to work into the film, but if the IEA has this big report, the International Environmental Agency has this big report about what we need to do to get to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, all the things that need to happen. Of all those things that need to happen, the IEA states that 4% of those things are individual behavior based.
Which those kind of stats like, and everybody questions them, wants to see them, wants to see a science. And there’s a lot of people quoting the most recent IPCC to me in this moment of like, well, the IPCC, the most recent one says that influencers and thought organizers and community leaders can lead by example by reducing their carbon footprint. And a lot of people are stopping there. I had a scientist, Greg Nemet, who wrote part of the IPCC, worked on the IPCC for years in my film. The and to that statement, yes, influential people like myself, community leaders, can influence people to, through purchasing power, through lifestyle decisions, live a less carbon-intensive life.
And, and... Individual action alone is not enough to address this issue in the timeframe that we need to address it. We need systemic, political, well-oriented, major scale policy changes. And so even you see the IPCC, which is kind of like our globally agreed upon rule book for what we’re doing here, acknowledging this both and part of this issue. And I think that when we focus only on the individual, like that shame and that guilt It’s so paralyzing and I feel like the biggest issue You know, in my community, outdoor community we face is apathy.
A lot of people are like, hey, my time on the trail, on the chairlift, like out in nature, this is my me time. This is my escape time. Don’t talk to me about the news. Don’t bring your politics onto the chairlift. Like, I don’t want to hear it. And I think what’s, you know, the reality is, is we don’t have that luxury anymore. If you still want to do these things, you need to get involved in this game. And what I really hope in like starting this conversation Is to create a little bit more space in the middle, right?
For more people to realize that they can be part of this conversation. You don’t have to be perfect to be part of this conversation. There’s potential for our community to drive really impactful change, but to just make space for that unity and to lay down the finger pointing and the judgment and the blaming and the shaming and really come together to drive those changes in a major way. Like to make it in my community, like, Part of what I do is influence people. And a lot of what I do is wrapped up in consumerism.
And I’m very aware of that, right? Convincing people to buy these skis or go skiing here or whatever. But I also can influence my community to be like, to be a member of this community, you need to be a citizen. Like that’s the benchmark is like, if you like it, you care about it, you want to continue this passion in your life and in your generations of your family’s lives to come, like, You need to be a citizen and it’s cool to engage civically. How do I make it cool to be civically engaged?
How do I make it cool to show up at a town council meeting? How do I make it cool to know who your county commissioner is? Not everybody gets to go to DC and lobby the way I have, but there’s so much else we can do. And even in the companies we work for, Yes, my job is to sell skis, but I’m also working with my ski sponsor, Atomic, where we’re really addressing the life cycle of the skis and the products, and we’re figuring out how to do that. You know, this year they had a lot of their skis come down up to 27% in their life cycle analysis for their carbon footprint, which is a meaningful thing in one year, you know, so I think it’s about, I think it’s really easy to I don’t know, like it’s like judging a book by the cover a little bit, I think is what we’re facing.
And I think it’s people’s identity. And I think I’m challenging. I think I set myself up for a tough week on the internet. I can tell you that much when I, cause I’m kind of, I’m getting it from both sides, right? Like, and I know that, but what I’m trying to do is I feel like there’s so many people in the middle that are lost and that’s who I want to talk to, you know?
Ross Kenyon: So like skiing is okay. But I think choosing, snowmobilers are easy to hate. And I realize I’m saying this publicly in a way that puts me in a precarious spot, but I will explain. I grew up in Mesa, Arizona, and a lot of my neighbors were, they were people who maybe came from the lower middle class, but became wealthy. They were contractors, people who were skilled tradespeople. And they bought dune buggies and quads and dirt bikes. And my parents kind of looked down on them. My parents were like, we go to London on vacation.
They’re all like, we load up the dune buggies and we go to Rocky Point and we get drunk and listen to Jimmy Buffett for a week straight. And my parents were like, you couldn’t pay me enough money to do that. That sounds awful. And I think, I don’t know if snowmobiling has that same association. I don’t know to what degree class is influencing that more than just it’s a loud thing and I don’t like it. But I feel like that’s, I have that association. I don’t know if that carries over to snowmobiles in the same way.
Does it?
Amie Engerbretson: I think it absolutely does. And I think that’s part of why I think using the snowmobile, it is a really polarizing symbol in my community. And I think other people can relate to that. I think that when I got into snowmobiling, I had a lot of the same Preconcerative notions like all these people must be super Republican. And if I show up in my Subaru with my California plates, they’re going to hate me.
Unknown speaker: Did they?
Amie Engerbretson: They had questions. They had questions, but there was actually more respect in it than you would thought. So I kind of thought getting into the snowmobile community, I was going to be met with that kind of person. And I also felt like I wasn’t going to be welcomed. And I had the experience of kind of putting myself in a new community. I was really surprised because the interactions I was having with people the trailheads, but especially like out in the field was so surprising. There’s this culture in the snowmobile world.
And I think this is like a middle America, small town culture thing that like we overlook as people that live on the coasts and in big cities of like this, this help your neighbor thing. And it was so amazing. Like when you, when I’ve been out backcountry skiing and I am struggling with my skin or the skin track is slippery and I’m Whatever struggling people like kind of buzz by you and are like, oh, you know, beat it kook, like learn how to skin or whatever. Like there’s a, there’s a lot of condescending nature.
Just like the way you’re on the trails, like, I don’t know, backcountry skiers are very like competitive to like get to their zone, get their first. And like, there’s a lot of, and I kind of assumed the snowmobile community would be the same way, but going out as a, you know, snowmobiling is actually a very difficult physical skill that I had to learn. And I’m still learning. I’m still pretty bad at it. But so I’d be out, you know, deep in the field, way out in the woods. And I had to have my, you know, snowmobile completely stuck in like a tree well.
All the time, actually. This happens all the time. And a whole group of like pro snowmobilers and their big fancy brand new snowmobiles like roll up. And rather than like going by and like, look at you, you’re an idiot. You’re in a tree well. You shouldn’t have gone there. Everybody stops, takes off their helmet. What can we do? Oh, we’ve had this kind of stuff before. Like there’s this community of like camaraderie and help that’s like baked into their culture. Like part of their day in the woods is helping other people.
And that was like kind of an aha moment to me where I had to face my own like judgment in the space. And that To me is kind of something that like, I think, yeah, it’s easy. Like, oh, they’re loud and they’re disrespectful because they’re loud. So I don’t like them. And it’s kind of like, well, like, is that true? And you probably don’t like them until you’re out there and you’re hurt or you have an equipment malfunction and then they can get you help really fast. Or, you know, I think there’s a lot of people think that where a snowmobile wants to go and where a backcountry skier wants to go are the same places.
And they’re really not. There’s some crossover at the beginnings of trailheads. But, um, I think it’s like what comes first, the chicken or the egg. At some point, there’s been judgment and distress between the user groups. So there’s a mutual disrespect. At some point, somebody has to pass out an olive branch and be like, look, let’s just – I don’t want to go snowmobiling. I don’t like it. It is loud and it’s not my thing. But – How can we just get along here? And you go that way and I go this way and, you know, maybe what radio channel are you on?
Because if I have a huge problem or an incident in the backcountry, maybe I’ll flag you and you can come help me. Like, can we get to that place? And I think, you know, I’ve had that experience with the Razor side-by-sides mountain biking in Moab where they’re just like loud and it makes it dusty and then I can’t breathe and then I’m annoyed. But it’s like, I don’t know, I guess I had this other experience that was really affecting in this way of, um, Trying to find some respect for like, who am I to judge how you recreate?
Like, where do I get off doing that? Like, where do I get off judging what kind of music you listen to or what you think is fun or any of those things? And I was with Protect Our Winters in DC lobbying for the first time. I was very nervous. I felt very, very out of place in Washington, D. C. on Capitol Hill in a rented pantsuit. I can tell you that. Almost as scared as like on the top of some like big ski lines, right? I’m like, what am I doing here?
I don’t belong here. I am so freaked out. And we had a meeting with a Republican congressman from Florida. And I was like, oh my God, like what? This is going to be so bad. What are we going to talk about? He’s going to hate me. He’s going to get angry. Like we’re trying to talk about climate change. He’s going to like I was just so nervous and so scared and I didn’t know how it was going to go. And so we, you know, we go into the meeting and at Protective Winners, we’ve done a lot of like training on how to talk about climate change and how to talk about like stories and emotions.
And so we kind of like went in leading with that. And I realized once I got talking to this guy, this Republican from Florida, right? Like how different could he be? He started talking about his experience in the Everglades. Never been to Florida. I don’t know anything about the Everglades. No idea. But I could see in his eyes when he was talking about those days with his family out there, that like same thing that I love when I’m out in the mountains skiing. And like he could kind of see that in me.
And it was this place where we could really like level set and connect. And from there have like this wildly productive conversation, which caught me totally off guard. And so I think, I don’t know, I think there’s, I’ve had all these like little experiences along the way where it’s like, To me, like, maybe it’s altruistic, I don’t know, but this unity in this community that I am part of and that maybe I’m influential in, if we could use that, like, kind of that common, like, literal common ground of, like, the outdoors and how essential being outside and being in nature is to, like, Living and enjoying life.
And again, I know I’m saying all this with so much privilege, but like that is like a unifier and a common ground where maybe our passion for these places and these playgrounds could be strong enough to overcome some of these major differences. For me, it’s a very strong passion. You know, I think a lot of us mountain people equate our experiences in the Really profound spiritual experiences. And I think a lot of people, even whether you’re religious or not, can relate to that feeling.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I think it is poignant that you brought in this kind of sense of a religious experience, which I think a lot of people would agree with that do outdoor recreation. I also... Really, there’s something really appealing about this idea that you’re saying that’s like, we can have these different political spectrums, we can have these different lifestyles, but like that the nature is what brings us together. Like this planet, this thing that we love is what brings it together. It’s poetic and I like it and you’re selling me, but I’m curious how high on like the voting priority is outdoor recreation, is nature protection to the average person.
Like even if We both love it. At the end of the day, I’m curious, and I don’t think necessarily you have the answer to this. You’re not a political pollster or something, but I’d be curious, like how many people could we really rally on this touchstone of like, let’s protect the natural places we recreate in? Or if that’s just like, like one person’s going to protect their natural recreations, but they hate all their other policies. Like, are they going to vote for that person? I don’t know. I don’t know. What do you guys think?
Amie Engerbretson: I mean, I think that’s the biggest challenge. Like you said, I’m not a political analyst or a pollster or anything, but with everything I’ve looked at and researched with alongside POW, that is the challenge is to make climate a single voter issue, to make it an overarching unifying issue, to have a world where climate can really truly exist on both sides of the aisle and not be a partisan issue, I think is what really needs to happen to move the needle. And I think that’s where I come back again to this idea of 50 million, this kind of outdoor state we’re starting to talk about in that 50 million people, it’s bigger than any state in the union.
It’s certainly bigger than any swing state. And if you were to compare, you know, if we want the outdoor state to be this huge political movement, if we were to compare that to an established movement that we think of as very effective, like the NRA, the NRA is 3 million really active members. So if we could tap in just a portion of the outdoor state, that 50 million, there is potential to be that political juggernaut to affect that issue. I mean, I think that as people who are, you know, for me, climate is my number one issue.
And I think it’s really hard because I don’t think right now it is a lot of issues in the world. And it’s really crazy out there. And it’s hard for me to even say what should be your number one issue. But if this I think there is tremendous power in the number that exists here. And I think the reason we haven’t ever seen and the finances behind it, if the outdoor industry can start playing in this arena and influencing policies and political decision makers and all this stuff, the way the pharmaceutical industry and the fossil fuel industry does, there’s tremendous potential there.
And also, again, like if you look at this problem more from the financial side of things, If we lose this industry that’s double the size of the fossil fuel extraction industry, what are the trickle down economics of that? You know, like even if you don’t want to base this decision on, you know, the fact that the polar bears are dying, right? Like I care about that. But even if you don’t care about that or that’s not relatable to you, I think like the U. S. economy is relatable to all voters, even in a global sense, right?
So I think that to me, It’s not as much justice like, oh, kumbaya, let’s all go to the campfire and sing songs and hold hands and get along. It’s like, no, no, no. If we can actually unify, we have tremendous power potential here that is completely untapped right now. That’s the part about it to me that’s really motivating and inspiring and gives me that courage to tattoo hypocrite on my forehead and put it on the internet for the whole world to look at. Because I think that there’s tremendous potential there and I think the more That we can learn about why we think the way we are, what the solutions are, where the power potential lies that’s not being tapped yet.
Like those are inspiring things to me. And again, like I’m not going to win anybody on the edges, right? I’m not, but I’m hoping I can give some people in the middle, um, Maybe just a way to open up their mind to think a little differently, to start having these conversations, to lay that groundwork. Like I can’t change the world with a 26 minute documentary on YouTube, right? That’s not going to happen. But I hope that like one thing I’ve noticed in all the screenings that we’ve done or people that have watched the movie, like immediately just this conversation just ignites kind of like the conversation we’re having where it’s like, Yeah, but what about this?
And did you think about this? And I never thought about this. And I think like those conversations, like that was my goal with the film. It has been trying for sure to put it online and face the criticism and just face troll culture. But then when I hear these conversations happening, like that to me is like, okay, like maybe that was something, you know, someone’s having a conversation from a different perspective than they’ve had before. Maybe someone’s willing to engage in this conversation when they haven’t been willing to before.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I think that’s all pretty spot on. And I like the way you frame this too, Siobhan, with just where does this rank in your priorities? I think for a lot of people, it probably isn’t the top thing, but there is a lot of sympathy too. Like one of the things I think has the most potential for, I think if people left of center approaching climate can relax on hunting a little bit. I think that is huge. I think things like Ducks Unlimited, super important organization. Have you ever seen that show Meat Eater on Netflix?
Amie Engerbretson: No, I haven’t, but I’ve heard about it.
Ross Kenyon: Steven Rinella is like, Pretty thoughtful guy about hunting. And he’s also on Joe Rogan and they’re talking about hunting. And it isn’t hunting from just like pure macho, eat red meat because it makes you a testosterone filled alpha male. There’s a strong sense of we have to preserve this. There’s invasive species that are taking over some of these environments and being quite destructive and we care about this. But they’re just approaching it from such a different angle. And this is kind of like the relative middle class who’s cooler thing I was talking about with my parents and our neighbors growing up.
I think there’s also just a similar cultural inability to communicate on this where if you could relax the hunting thing a little bit, I think people could probably see conversations like that for what they are as a generally positive conservationist orientation that could be an ally or at least a fellow traveler.
Amie Engerbretson: It should be an ally for sure. The hook and bullet community are the original conservationists. They started conservation as we know it in America. And I think people don’t Realize that Roosevelt and like people like that.
Ross Kenyon: Totally.
Amie Engerbretson: And I think it can be seen as extractionary. Sure. All outdoor recreation is extractionary in some form. But I think that you’ll never, in my experience, you’ll never meet someone that’s more in touch with the natural environment around them than a hunter. Like those guys know what’s going on in their environment much more than like your random mountain biker, for example. So I think that is exactly like I’m using the motorized community, but I think like you could place in the hook and bullet industry and community as well for like, we need to be on the same team, you guys, like we want the same things, you know?
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. It’s like, how do you how do you do that? Because I think part of it is there’s a really strong they’re almost just different, like moral tribes of people and they don’t communicate much. But I think the overlap is potentially there, but it’s way more fun to split into teams and try to fight each other than I think it is to try to learn another language, which is notoriously difficult and time consuming. But I think there’s a there there, just how many people are willing to do that.
Amie Engerbretson: And it’s just not as fun as arguing on the internet, which is- But I just want to come back to this idea of like, hello, we’ve been brainwashed to do this, to like big companies have spent millions, if not billions of dollars to strengthen those divides and to create that guilt and shame in all of us. And I think that’s something like, again, just like to flag of like, There’s other things at play here. I think a really cool place to go start is Naomi Oreskes, the woman I filmed. Her first book that became a movie, Merchants of Doubt, goes through how the tobacco industry or the fossil fuel industry watched what the tobacco industry did with public misinformation and was like, let’s hire those guys.
And they did. And that’s how this all came to be. I think that this idea of, oh, it’s so fun to fight with each other. Why are we thinking? Can we even just for a second?
Ross Kenyon: It’s way older than that. Sure. True, but this is like...
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I would say the same thing. I think there’s like a human nature. I don’t know if it’s tribalism or the sense of like, what I’m doing is right. And therefore, if you’re doing something different, it has to inherently be wrong, which I think we know is not true, or at least some civilized part of our brain knows that’s not true. I wonder what you say to people who point to like collective action, not only in politics, which by the way, I love that’s the... The bead you’ve tied together because there’s so little action, I would say, collective action on politics.
And there is so much ground to be gained there. I wonder what people say when it’s like, well, what if everybody flew less, won less flight? What if everybody did meatless Mondays? You know, what if everybody, like, is there a role then in your mind for personal action like that in a collective sense?
Amie Engerbretson: I think absolutely. It’s a yes and situation. I just think that when you actually talk to the experts and stack up the stats of collective individual actions versus collective systemic actions, like what we’re up against is just still so big that I don’t know the actual statistics behind a worldwide meatless Monday. The reality is That’s still a privilege. It’s not available to everybody, right? And so I think that this idea of collective action being more important than collective systemic political action, it’s just not factually sound statistically, nor is it realistic.
I think there’s a realism part of this here too. It’s just not realistic. And now I know it sounds crazy to think that It’s realistic to affect our government for whatever direction. I know that sounds crazy too, but the reality is that every time I interact with, go to a talk from, do research alongside someone who’s in climate solutions, a scientist in climate solutions, their number one answer to this question is that political will is the only thing that solves this problem In the timeframe that we need to solve it in.
So I think, again, it’s not- So how do we make it cool then, Amy?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Is it like we had a surf company on and they were like, just slap a surfer on it and already it’s cooler. Is there a way we could just like slap a skier or a snowboard around these like, these political events and be like, it’s cooler now. Come give a shit.
Amie Engerbretson: Be it as it may, like when with Protect Our Winners, when we go to DC and we have a group of Olympians and World Traveled Athletes and Conrad Anker, and we do get meetings, I think, like easier because, oh, that’s cool. I want to talk to Conrad Anker or I want to talk to Jimmy Chin, you know.
Ross Kenyon: I want to talk to Jimmy Chin.
Amie Engerbretson: Right. We all want to talk to Jimmy Chin. But like, I think that, yeah, it is like our... That is my challenge and we’re not there yet. And I think that like, you know, in my community, this conversation, this idea of like the hypocrisy, the perceived hypocrisy and all this, the hypocrisy issue has always been something that’s been like swept over or not talked about or not directly addressed or just brought up in the DMs. Or I think that like to me, just putting it out in the open, like, yeah, I’m a hypocrite.
Even if you’re a vegan, you’re probably a hypocrite in some part of your life. Like, okay, Cool. Let’s de-weaponize that word. Now what? I’m going to do this thing and what’s the worst thing you’re going to say? Oh, you’re going to call me a hypocrite because I told you to vote and then I also went heli skiing last year. Okay, that’s fine. Call me a hypocrite because it is probably hypocritical. The issue is hypocritical. The issue is imperfect. The solutions are imperfect. Life is imperfect. Anytime in my life I strive for perfection, I wind up Paralyzing myself, you know, and it’s same in my life as an athlete.
There is no perfect line. There’s no perfect day. There’s no perfect run. Like so many days that I faced in the backcountry skiing are terribly imperfect, but I don’t go home and quit skiing. You know, I just don’t. I keep going because maybe I’m a psycho. Sure. But like, There’s that progress there, you know, and that perfection is not real. And there’s hypocrisy in every walk of our lives. So how do we get to the point where we’re okay with that, you know?
Ross Kenyon: I got to quote something at you. I think this is the most quoted thing from the show in its entire run. And I swear I’m a way bigger poser. This makes me sound like I’m super religious. Yeah. That’s not what is happening right now. Dostoevsky has this line where he says, prayer doesn’t exist to change the mind of God. It exists to change the person praying. And I don’t want to let myself off the hook from considering even if the actions results are negligible in the grand scheme of things, me making a choice that I think is moral, even if I’m the only person that knows about it, I think that can be meaningful to people and it can bring Joy and still be an important thing.
I don’t want to give people permission to say, well, no one, this isn’t going to change anything. So why not do the more convenient thing that is less good for the climate or something like that? I think Naomi makes a good point in the film. She says, like, don’t like hold yourself to such a standard that you’re making yourself miserable, essentially. And that’s not good for anyone. But I also want people to find ways to make moral choices that can bring joy. I don’t want to remove that agency either.
Amie Engerbretson: No, but that exists. Do you think about carpooling? Do you think about being efficient with whatever mode of transportation you’re using? Sure, but I want to make sure that there’s a primary ballot sitting on my kitchen table right now. I think making sure I fill that out is as important as beating myself up if I missed a carpool to the mountain tomorrow. You know, and what’s even more important is can I make sure that my 20 closest friends also fill out their primary ballot? You know, I just also I just want to take the emphasis away from just who’s president.
I think who’s president is really important. And I think those you’re correct that those decisions are made in these very bizarre margins. And if you want to go way down that deep end of depending where you live, if it’s worth changing your registration and da, da, da. Sure, but it’s not really about making sure you know who’s president. I want to make sure I know one of the most important People on your ballot when it comes to climate is your county commissioner. How many people know who their county commissioner is?
County commissioners have a tremendous amount of power and influence without a lot of oversight, especially when it comes to environmental policies. That person’s really important on your ballot. Let’s make it cool to talk about your county commissioner. Like what’s going on all the way down and how does that drive things? Like I think we get really wrapped up in Voting for two very, very old men, right? And yes, both of them could have tremendous impact one way or the other on what happens in regards to climate change. Absolutely. But that’s not citizenship.
Citizenship isn’t voting for the president. Citizenship is knowing what’s going on civically in your community around you. And that’s all the way down.
Ross Kenyon: I mean to laugh at you, but the idea of listening to your county commissioner is like, could you say a less cool thing? You’re a professional skier.
Amie Engerbretson: I’m trying to make it cool. Let’s slap a surfer on it. Let’s get all the surfers to know who their county commissioner is.
Ross Kenyon: Get Kai Lenny on, slap him on there.
Amie Engerbretson: Kai Lenny was at my film at the Coast Film Festival and he, one of the coolest compliments I got, because I didn’t really know how the film would land on someone like Kai Lenny, who’s so snow specific. He was like, that was awesome and that was really inspiring and it inspires me to create these waves in like the surf community. Like this is literal Kai Lenny and I’m just like fangirling, right? I’m like, oh my God, it’s Kai Lenny. Be cool, be cool, be cool. But yeah, I don’t know. I think that It’s altruistic, but like it has to be, right?
Like the quote that I keep over quoting right now, it was said to me at this, some talk called like climate optimism or something, which kind of makes you roll your eyes. Pessimism is lazy. That’s just the fact of the matter. Pessimism is lazy. And like we don’t get to be pessimistic and lazy in this issue. And like in the community that I come from, We’re not lazy people. We go out into the mountains, like seeking discomfort and long walks and hard things. And I go skiing in the rain. And like, it just, I’m not a lazy person.
My community are not lazy people. Like pessimism is lazy. And so like, we don’t get to like, how do you stay optimistic? Well, this is what we have to do.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Where can people get involved? Shout out some resources here.
Amie Engerbretson: Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest resources right now is Protect Our Winters. They have, if you go to their website, they have this thing, Join Team POW. It’s just a sign up. It taps you into their newsletters. And they have all these really cool resources on the website, everything from like reading and listening and watching lists to they have these things called Crux Academies. Like if you want to learn how to be a climate advocate, you can take these online courses called Crux Academies. And it taps you into just a lot of resources where you can take it as far as you want to go.
They have a 501c4 coalition that helps and activates, you know, it’s an election year. So they’ll have voter guidebooks. You know, all those different resources for how you can be a citizen in your own community, vote all the way down by ballot, get resources to learn more like, hey, I want to learn more about this individual action versus systemic thing. If you go to the POW website through Team POW, there’s a whole list of resources and places you can dive as deep as you want to go. And obviously, I encourage everybody listening to watch the film.
It’s called The Hypocrite. It’s on Teton Gravity Research’s YouTube page. Just open your mind to the to the ideas that might exist there in the conversations that might spark like amongst your friends in your community, you know, I think that’s that’s my hope is to further these conversations like we’re having right now, you know, like where we didn’t we didn’t solve anything right, but we had a conversation I got some new ideas like you know, I think that’s that’s the hope.
Ross Kenyon: No, thanks for being here. I think the way that you produced this film is very courageous. And I think it’s a, the messy middle is the place to hang out on most of these things. And I think people who have found a really convenient binary answer in many of these things are not perhaps as helpful as maybe they suppose. So I respect the way that you conducted this and I hope the backlash, I hope, I mean, Kailani likes it. I’ll take a lot of trolls. Just put that on the cover.
Yeah, that’s fine.
Amie Engerbretson: P. S. Ky Lenny liked it.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. So like a thousand trolls, 10,000 trolls. I don’t know what the conversion ratio, how many Ky Lenny’s does it take? But whatever. Thank you for doing what you do. Links to all of those things are in the show notes. And thanks, Siobhan, for helping co-host. And thanks for being here, Amy.
Amie Engerbretson: Thank you guys for having me on the show. And thanks for the conversation.
Ross Kenyon: Thank you so much for listening. If you could please subscribe and give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcasts or a rating on Spotify, that’d be much appreciated. It helps us get our content out to more people. You can sign up for our newsletter at nori.com. Follow us on social media. We will catch you next time.
