You should know about my friend Heidi Lim. She's a leading voice of carbon removal on TikTok.
She's been making short-form content for ages but today's show is her first foray into long-form. I have the honor of being her first guest and co-releasing the episode.
It is my sincere honor to help Heidi launch her new content on YouTube!
We get real in this show, talking about the difficult and sometimes unsung work of climate communications, why our world feels so screwed up, and the black hole of tech jobs that suck so much talent into its brain drain.
Best wishes, Heidi! So glad you're now doing this. Count me as a big fan!
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The full video on Heidi's YouTube channel
326: Confronting Our Shadow: Jung, The Vietnam War, & Climate Change—w/ Karl Marlantes, author
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"And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."
- Matthew 5:30, KJV
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: Hello, this is your host, Ross Kenyon. I’m doing something that I have not done before. I feel like I did a long time ago, but it’s been a while. But in trying to make this show financially sustainable, I was able to pick up a couple of sponsors. It would do me a great favor if you could please listen and learn more about each of them, since they offer something to different parts of our audience that I think you will care about. These two sponsors — and thank you from the bottom of my heart for becoming sponsors — are Offstream and Arbonics.
Arbonics is a project developer. They’re the ones that are actually pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and storing it, and they are doing it through trees. You know, trees have had a difficult time within carbon removal. You should go listen to the show that I did with Lisett Luik from Arbonics. We did a show probably about six weeks or eight weeks ago, and we talked about how the trajectory of afforestation, reforestation within carbon removal has played out, how that impacts whether we are storing biological material in anoxic environments for carbon removal purposes alone.
Arbonics is doing something a little bit differently. Europe has over 14 million hectares of underused land, which, you know, abandoned farmland, it’s low quality pasture. Not a lot is happening there. A lot of it once was forest. It was cleared a long time ago for farming, but the global food supply and better yields elsewhere has meant that a lot of this land is just underutilized, and we haven’t quite figured out what to do with it yet. So Arbonics uses technology to help landowners find this land and then restore it back into carbon-removing, biodiverse forest.
And that last point is really important, because a lot of forestry that takes place is a monoculture, which is maybe solving one problem, but it’s not solving the overall polycrisis, ecological crisis. So Arbonics pursues that way of going to market in order to offer corporates high quality, data-backed European carbon removal credits, helping companies reach their sustainability goals with maximum trust. So go listen to that conversation with Lisett. I’ll put a link in the show notes if you want some more.
And if you’re thinking about this in terms of a cycle here, Offstream would be a service provider to Arbonics. Offstream is there to make carbon compliance simple for project developers. If you’re listening, if you work at a carbon removal company or company producing other types of carbon assets, the data portion of this is super challenging. If you’re listening and you haven’t had to read through a methodology or any registry documentation, you’ll probably live longer than the rest of us who have. It’s non-trivial, it’s difficult, and that’s not to say that it shouldn’t be difficult. Much of this should be, so we make sure that quality is actually taking place when carbon is removed or avoided or anything like that.
And Offstream exists to make it easier for project developers to not get stuck on the level of data. Varsha Ramesh Walsh, Offstream CEO, she likens their platform to being a GPS for your carbon credit and your MRV plans. It’s guiding you through the jungle of certifications and compliance. Oh, I love that. That’s such a fun, visual way of putting it. This is a world where you can develop and iterate on your project LCAs in minutes, not weeks, where you can focus on doing the important work of growing your business, scaling carbon removal, generating more credits, without having to necessarily hire more employees.
This is really an important time in carbon removal where minimizing headcount may be necessary for a number of companies to stay alive and keep going, and Offstream is here to help you do that. They’re here to help you with your LCA needs. If you’re listening, you’re a project developer, you know one, and they are having persistent migraines from paperwork, like, go over to useoffstream.com. Tell them that Offstream can help them handle the quote unquote boring bits while they can focus on saving the planet. Offstream, because paperwork shouldn’t be a full-time job. Cracks me up.
Thank you, Offstream and Arbonics, for sponsoring Reversing Climate Change. I’m really appreciative that you’re able to help me do this. It means a lot. If you’re listening to this and you’d like to sponsor Reversing Climate Change, feel free to send me an email. I’ll put the email in the show notes too, and let’s talk. And OK, now I’m going into the show proper, the intro. Here it is, and thank you again for listening.
By way of a brief intro, this is a co-released podcast with my old friend Heidi Lim. Heidi is an amazing TikToker, and she is starting a new YouTube and TikTok channel doing a lot more long-form content interviews. I’ve been trying to encourage Heidi for a long time to do this. I really love the way that she does her work. I think she’s such an important climate communicator in carbon removal, public intellectual. I hope you will support Heidi’s work. Links to follow her work on all the various platforms will be in the show notes below.
Here’s our first conversation. I end up getting pretty vulnerable, talk a lot about the spiritual nature of climate work and how bizarre the world is and how we fit into it, and it gets pretty real. And I think that’s a good illustration of maybe where Heidi’s creativity will go in her climate communications work. So please support her. Thanks for listening. If you like this show and want to be a subscriber for ad-free listening and bonus content, it’s five bucks a month. Link is also in the show notes. If you’re not quite ready to do that yet, totally OK. Please give Reversing Climate Change a five-star rating in iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, some other app that you use. And thank you again, Heidi, for being here. I hope everyone goes and supports your work too. And here is your show.
Heidi Lim: Oh hey, welcome to our first long-form video. As someone who’s been working in the climate space for many years, over that time I’ve developed sort of a thesis about, uh, why climate media is flawed and why I think there aren’t that many climate influencers out there. And I guess I’m setting out to try to fill in some gaps I feel like exist. One of the things I’m seeing is that there’s sort of this wall between everyday people who are feeling a lot of despair about climate change and the state of the world, who feel like nothing is being done about climate change. And then the other side of the wall is someone who’s in the industry.
I see a lot of really good progress being made and, you know, thousands of people who are doing some really awesome work every single day to work towards those climate goals, even in a difficult environment that we’re in right now. And I feel like because of that wall, there is so much room for despair. I’ve been wanting to create a platform where I can help people see past that wall, and the people on the industry side, people who are working on climate who may not have the time or interest to create a YouTube platform or create a TikTok platform, would be able to, like, use the platform that I’m making so that you can hear those voices and hear what cool stuff is happening, and in a way that’s accessible to everyone and feels humanizing.
Like, I would love for you to feel like you have these climate friends who you can turn to and enjoy listening to and, like, getting to know. Today is my first episode of the series, talking with my friend Ross Kenyon, who is someone who has been an ally to me on my own personal climate journey, someone who’s a creative in the space who’s been podcasting the Reversing Climate Change podcast for many years. I’ve been a guest on it, but I also started out listening to this podcast on my walks from the bus stop to my job before I worked on climate.
Something I always like to advise people about is if you’re thinking about making a career pivot, take the first step. Create ways to passively learn or passively start dipping your toe into the next field. And one of those ways is to just subscribe to a podcast or subscribe to content creators who are doing stuff in the field that you’re interested in. For me, in 2018, when I was switching from working in software to moving into climate work, I was just listening religiously to the Reversing Climate Change podcast. I hope you like this format. Let me know what you think, and thanks for spending time with me and Ross today.
All right, Ross, thank you for being my first, my first guest. Ross Kenyon, I think we first met because I reached out to you when I was looking for my first climate role. Is that right? It was either you or Paul. I was like, I’m going to just try. I’m just trying to reach out to you on LinkedIn.
Ross Kenyon: I think it was me, and maybe reach out to both of us, but it was definitely at least me, because I remember speaking to you several years ago.
Heidi Lim: That’s funny though. In my memory though, your famous carbon removal essay in my mind predates my involvement in carbon removal. But maybe that’s not actually what happened. Is that—
Ross Kenyon: Is this like a Rashomon kind of thing right now? I definitely, definitely met you before. Before the — yeah, before that piece came out.
Heidi Lim: Well, the reason I’m bringing on Ross as my first guest is you’re somebody who I feel like embodies what working in climate looks like. You’re a person who is just really open to genuinely helping people get into the space and helping people to learn about, like, what kinds of things they can do to help in carbon removal specifically, but I think broadly all things climate. And you’re really dedicated to building community around you, and, like, you’re really genuine. You helped me, and I know you’ve been pushing me to pursue my own creative endeavors.
So yeah, I guess my thoughts on this show is like, I want to make people feel like they have a climate friend, but not be beyond that to, like, have many climate friends. And that includes people that, you know, I’m talking to who have made my experience working in climate so special. And, you know, beyond the career stuff or whatever, like, I think the people aspect of working in climate is the reason why we can keep each other going, even though we are continuing to face really challenging odds in many, in many ways. So yeah, that’s kind of why I was thinking, yeah, Ross would be a perfect person for my audience to hear from, and appreciate you.
And of course, you’re also a founder, an entrepreneur. You worked on soil health, you worked on different carbon markets. I’m honored. And you’re a media guy, which I’m trying to be, a media guy myself.
Ross Kenyon: You are. You, you’ve been doing this for so long, successful TikToker. I’m sure the trajectory will continue that direction too. No, I’m really honored to be first here, and thanks for, you know, making me blush a little bit. I really do care about that kind of showing up a lot. I think LinkedIn has a strong performative culture. It’s very self-serving. And so much of one’s career life, there’s an attitude of how do I get ahead. And one of the lines I always liked — it was always said very cynically, and you can read it in a very cynical way, but you can also read it in a beautiful way — it’s from Hollywood. It sounds like something like maybe Betty White would have said or something.
It’s something like, the people you meet on the way up are the same ones you see on the way down. And it’s true, I think. Like, you want people to remember that you were kind to them when you didn’t have a reason to. You took a meeting that you didn’t have to, and you helped more than you took. And I do. When I die, I want to be remembered that way. I want people to say, like, wow, Ross had no reason to take that call. He was someone that I had nothing to offer, and he still, like, took it.
And I want to be, like, yeah, there’s a pathological version of that, which is like people pleasing, and my time is unvalued by myself, and I give it away all for free. I hope I’m not doing that. I don’t think I’m doing that. But I like helping people. That’s what I like to do.
Heidi Lim: I feel that. I hope that our audience here today gets to feel that from you as well. And I also feel like you’re not necessarily an anomaly too. Like, a lot of really — yeah, generous people were able to do — were doing that for me when I was looking for my climate job, and continue to. And then, you know, they really pay it forward. So I feel like it’s kind of cultural. Yeah, did you — ’cause you had your people came out of the woodwork after your how to switch into climate or carbon removal piece came out. Yeah. And I think I remember talking to you and you were just like, yeah, my calendar just booked with people who want — I’m just giving them, like, free consulting on that. Is that — am I remembering that right? Is that right?
Ross Kenyon: That’s why I wrote the piece about switching into climate work, because it went that way. Yeah, it was to help make my calendar a little bit less full, but then it ended up having the opposite effect, because then more people just knew about it. So yeah. And I guess it’s like this is an extension of that, which is like, I just cannot take those calls, and I’m trying to think about, how can I, like, what’s the force multiplier of my impact? And media is it for me. That’s my thesis, at least.
Heidi Lim: Yeah, I think it’s a good thesis. You already have good positive proof points for it too. It doesn’t seem like some delusional aspiration here. It seems pretty well grounded by your long-term passion for short-form video content, now longer-form, medium-form video content. OK, well, I guess I was thinking of this conversation in a few parts, and the first part was, I guess, just to talk about, like, the people who do climate work, because you probably have the largest Rolodex of anyone in climate work, unless — you have very impressive Rolodex. Like, how many episodes are you into the podcast?
Ross Kenyon: I mean, just Reversing Climate Change is like 300, maybe close to 400 if you’re counting the unnumbered bonus episodes too. I think Carbon Removal Newsroom’s like another hundred of those, but I didn’t host all of those.
Heidi Lim: But yeah, so — oh my gosh. Yeah. Oh yeah, ’cause sometimes there’s like multiple people on at once. OK, so the people of climate work is sort of my first bucket that I think would be a good area to dive into together. And then the second thing about — I want to talk about the state of climate media, because I feel like part of what I’m doing is trying to add to the climate media conversation, because I feel like it’s quite — it’s flawed in a lot of ways. It’s, you know, an uphill battle in many ways. And since you’ve been in this world for so long, I think it’d be fun to chat about that.
OK, well, I guess my first question is kind of related to both of them, which is, I feel like you are the rare instance of somebody who wanted to work on climate change, but you had this idea very early on to make a podcast. And there aren’t many. I feel like there aren’t as many climate-focused or, like, even cleantech-focused podcasts as you would think based on how immense the problem is. And very early on in your founding days of Nori, you guys figured out, OK, we’re going to do a podcast where we talk to other folks doing this work. Like, how did that happen? Why did you do that?
Ross Kenyon: It was my co-founder Paul Gambill’s idea originally. We did it in the hackathon, but Paul always had a really powerful content-forward approach, and I certainly thought that as well. But that’s a harder thing to convince the CEO of that maybe doesn’t believe that. So it was nice that Paul was always been a big supporter of creative media, and we needed that at Nori too. We were so early in carbon removal that there was no product for several years to sell. So media for us and storytelling was the product, and that led to a lot of good things happening for Nori over years.
Those gains of your share of public perception for carbon removal companies — I think Nori was able to grab so much of that just because we were always having conversations that were interesting and strange. And a lot of people still to this point say, oh, I — this was the first thing for carbon removal I got really into and it really helped push me. And I hear those comments like a couple times a year. Isn’t like a huge amount, but it’s enough for, if it changed the trajectory of someone’s life, potentially. Maybe they would have gotten into carbon removal anyways, I don’t know. But this is nice. It’s nice to give them a nudge or make them curious or confirm something that maybe they had an inkling, that carbon removal was going to be a thing, and just push them over the edge there.
But so there’s like really powerful, practical business reasons for having done it, by which I mean there was no product to sell except for this. And then also there’s certainly a good idea by Paul, and one that I was pretty well suited to carry out. I think I was pretty well suited to carry it out too, because I had come from formerly a very ideologically driven political space where I was very black and white, very foundational in my orientation. And I came out of grad school being pretty confused, and so that put me in a really good spot to relate to lots of people, ask questions, meet them where they are. And I think that isn’t always that common of an intellectual headspace to bring to podcasting. So I think it kind of just all those things together just worked out.
Heidi Lim: Interesting. Yeah. I mean, I personally was listening to the Reversing Climate Change podcast, like, religiously, every single — literally every single episode — through my job search. I hope there’s a lot more people who continue to get a lot out of your conversations on that podcast.
Ross Kenyon: It’s been super fun doing it, because it’s almost eight years at this point, getting close to eight years of doing Reversing Climate Change. And the competition has really stepped up too. There’s just so many more specialized shows in climate and carbon removal. And when Reversing Climate Change started, it was, as far as I know — I don’t think there’s anyone that can challenge this, but maybe so — but I think it was the only carbon removal podcast out there. That’s not true anymore. There are a lot, and many of them are very good too. Like, I listened to several other podcasts too, to make sure I’m rounding out the perspectives. And some people are more policy oriented, some are more like business or tech focused, and I try to just bring all that in there.
But I don’t know, my advice to you that I’ve learned after eight years — unsolicited advice, I might add — just do whatever you do that’s exactly you. I no longer make any apologies for the weird shows that I program. Some of them are like barely climate, barely carbon removal. Some of them I sneak through and, like, if you like the way that I talk about things or address them, maybe you’ll also be interested in this thing that’s adjacent but not, like, directly climate. I hope. And that’s kind of like a bit of, for better or for worse, and I hope for better, for the right kind of person who likes me personally.
And if anyone who listens to you, past or — you’re YouTubing, TikToking — like, they’re there because they like Heidi. They’re not going to be there for probably other reasons, or they will grow to love you and that’s why they keep showing up over time. So I don’t know. A lot of people have like more focused podcasts, though. I watch some of them, you’re like, OK, like CDR Policy Scoop. No one’s going to mistake the kinds of shows that they’re making. Like, it is exactly what is on the tin, and that’s cool. My show is not what is on the tin. Sometimes there’s things where people are like, what the hell is this show? There’s a show on the occult. You put out a Halloween show on the occult. Yes, I did do that. That’s something that I did.
Heidi Lim: Yeah, I — this is what I feel like is an issue with climate media, is like, you — things are too specialized. And I’m trying — I mean, on my platform, I’m talking about, you know, the brain drain into big tech. I’m talking about, you know, I’m very anti-AI, very anti-tech bro. I talked about, like, why are we seeing attacks on science in general? You know, why is there a decline in trust in science in America? Like, those are topics that I’m going into. ’Cause yeah, I do feel that we very much sort of kneecap our audience, because it’s a very self-selecting group of people who want to watch or listen to climate-specific media.
Like, I myself am — unfortunately, I don’t even consume climate media because I’m just not interested a lot of times. And so I kind of — but that kind of helps me to, like, figure out why, like, what is the gap here, and, like, what would a YouTube channel look like where I actually want to watch it and it helps me to stay up to date with the climate? And that’s what I’m trying to create, I guess.
Ross Kenyon: I think if you want something and you can’t find it, whether or not that’s media related or not, if you feel like you are the right person to make that, that’s a pretty good indicator that if you feel that way, likely other people do too. And it’s worth exploring and just seeing, is there any [unclear] for this thing? So I think you are correct in how you’re approaching this. There are many shows that I don’t listen to, or just I’m just like, ah, just, you know, like, I would rather listen to something that’s fun, or listen to a book, or just, you know, enjoy nature sounds outside without having something in my ears right now. There’s a lot of competition for that.
Heidi Lim: OK, since we kind of dove into the topic of climate media, we can stay here. What is the state of climate media? As somebody who’s been here for a long time — I can tell you how I feel it is as an outsider, but you’ve been doing this for a while. Yeah. How is it going? I’m very curious about your take.
Ross Kenyon: I have this theory, and I’m not sure if it’s correct, but when I noticed at some point many more carbon removal companies and people started investing more in media, and that struck me as a sign of bad things, where it’s like, oh, shouldn’t you be focused on selling your products? Shouldn’t you — is now really the best time to be investing in content? Because Nori came at it because we didn’t have anything to sell. So I just imagined that if that model is correct, you weren’t doing media because you ran out of things to sell, or selling is not going very well, because these are longer-term investments in brand equity.
Starting any kind of podcast or any kind of account like this, it often takes a while to build some momentum, and companies think it’s easy. We’re just going to record a show with the CEO and such and such, and it’s going to result in increased sales, talent acquisition and retention and brand equity. And, like, you maybe have like tens of listens for a while. Like, the slow build of the RSS feed subscribership, it’s a grind. So I don’t know. I see so much content out there and I wonder how much of it is because there’s not more remunerative ways to spend time. I don’t know if that’s true or not. I have that thought sometimes, though.
It reminds me a little bit of that scene in The Big Short where Steve Carell is like, yeah, we’re in a bubble. Yeah, short, short it all. Yeah, it’s all bullshit. You know, like, I hope it’s not that. I really do. But I like that it just shows how much specialization there is too. It’s a little bit like if you’re in a smaller town or a smaller industry — I’m going to stick with a smaller town — and there’s only a couple restaurants. You got like a Subway and a Chili’s or whatever. And you go to New York City and you’re like, it’s 3:00 AM and I can get Bangladeshi food. Like, how is that possible, with this much specialization in this area?
Like, I think as CDR just grows as an industry, like, the shows become much more specific and people are trying to find ways to experiment with format, to like what you’re doing. I think what Sebastian and Ava are doing right now with CDR Policy Scoop is very smart. There’s a lot of stuff like that that I’m watching. I’m like, cool, it’s innovation with form and format and not just content. Whereas I’m very much like content driven, and like maybe I’ll make video too, but I am always just like, what’s something weird that no one is talking about yet that I’m really interested in that I can connect to my professional life? Jump in here. Yeah, sorry, I’m just rambling about this.
Heidi Lim: No, it’s great. I was just — I’m thinking of, do you know that podcast You’re Wrong About? I love that podcast. It’s one of my favorites.
Ross Kenyon: No, I don’t think I’ve listened to—
Heidi Lim: You have to. OK, well, if you like the occult, you’re gonna love this podcast. They actually — they talk way too much about Satanic panic, like, all the time. But each episode is like totally different. It’s just stuff in history that we think we know that is just like — they’re actually like, what actually is it, like Marie Antoinette saying let them eat cake. OK, she actually said that when she was 11 and she was a child at that point when she said it. It’s not like when she was queen. It’s — things are like misplaced all the time. They did a very long series on Princess Diana. They did a very long series on OJ Simpson in that case, yeah. And they — yeah. So Satanic panic is in there sprinkled, sprinkled throughout.
Ross Kenyon: I wanna listen to all these. Yeah. Just Diana alone, I’m very interested.
Heidi Lim: And they’re a cozy podcast too, where, like, they’re just fun. It doesn’t stress me out. I guess that’s one thing, is I try to listen to media that doesn’t stress me out. I guess you were asking, like, my thoughts on climate media as an outsider. Yeah. Well, so I don’t consider myself a carbon removal specific content creator. Like, I barely — my audience is not even there yet. Like, I’ve made a couple of things about carbon removal, but we haven’t talked about that basically at all, not yet. I will do like a longer deep dive on carbon removal, probably just take what I wrote and put it in the video form, ’cause I’ve done it in audio and I’ll do it in video. But yeah, we haven’t gotten there yet.
And I feel like when I think of climate media, it’s always either news, which is again self-selecting. It’s for people who go and read Canary Media, go and read Heatmap News, because they want — or Grist. I love Grist, because, you know, they are seeking that information out. And then, of course, the only time people — an average, like a regular person — sees anything about climate, it’s when it’s bad, because that’s the few times that, like, CNN or, you know, one of these, like, mainstream media outlets will say something about it, is, like, bad stuff.
And then, like, in the industry side, I feel like these, you know, smaller media outlets tend to be, like, really specific and professional. It’s not approachable to an average person. It’s, like, people who are talking among themselves within an industry, and they maybe are using even jargon that an average person can’t just jump into, because you have to have that prior knowledge. Yeah. So I just think there’s not enough of those, like, things on the periphery that’s going to grab just a random person.
And then the reason I’m focusing on TikTok is because it’s just a medium that, like, I think professionals who are in the industry haven’t touched. Like, even you, you know, you’re really in media, but, you know, I was like, Ross, you have to please download TikTok so you can experience it, when we were talking about it a couple years ago. And that’s — you’re not the only one. Like, and I’m trying to bring the voices of the people in the industry to that audience in an approachable way that they don’t have to seek it out. And hopefully — yeah, like, I want to be like Hank Green. Like, everyone loves Hank Green, but he talks about science and — but you don’t care. He talks about — he’s just your buddy, you know. He’s like the person that you trust.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, he’s a real world beater too. Just, like, fluency with history and literature and science. You’re like, come on, man, you can’t be good at all this stuff. I always make fun of John Sanchez for that too. I’m like, come on, John, you can’t be good at all this stuff at the same time. Yeah. But that’s a good point, I really should just commit to doing it too. Do the occult stuff. I did one show about how I don’t like the phrase Faustian bargain for climate work, especially for geoengineering.
Heidi Lim: I’ve never heard — I’ve never heard that.
Ross Kenyon: You never heard someone say—
Heidi Lim: Explain it. Explain it to us, because I don’t think — yeah, I haven’t even heard that.
Ross Kenyon: Faustian bargain is a way of saying a deal with the devil. So Faust makes a deal with a specific demon of some variety, Mephistopheles, and it works out for Faust, though — like, it depends on the version of it. So in the Christopher Marlowe version, he gets damned and he ends it all. But everyone always talks about the Goethe version, which is the most famous one. But on a technicality, he wins the deal, and he gets the good stuff from the demon that offered him all of knowledge, essentially, and doesn’t have to go to hell for it. So whenever people say that’s a Faustian bargain, I’m like, but it worked out. So, like, are you—
It’s like when people say Epicurean to mean that someone is a very rich eater, and you’re like, Epicureans were hedonists, but they thought that you would have more pleasure if you didn’t overindulge. So actually you’re using the word wrong historically. So I’m basically a pedant is what I’m trying to tell you.
Heidi Lim: This — yeah, that’s the You’re Wrong About — that’s very You’re Wrong About of you.
Ross Kenyon: Is it? Then we just ended up talking about, like, Ari Aster films and, like, various aspects of, like, maybe the occult is so prominent in our culture these days, and it kind of just went from there. But yeah, someone left a comment on one of the podcasting review forums being like, this used to be like a climate show. What happened to it? I’m like, we just put out a Halloween show. Can’t they have a little fun? Like, what the hell? What’s wrong with that?
Heidi Lim: Well, you know, you got to ignore the commenters, because people are always going to say something negative no matter what you do. So yeah, that’s my — those are my thoughts on, like, climate media, sort of like where it is at the moment, and why I’m trying to do something a little bit different. But yeah, what do you think?
Ross Kenyon: I know one of the things I do that’s fun that we started at Nori, but then I ended up continuing on after Nori wound down last year, is the Carbon Removal Memes account. We always have a long debate about — not even a debate, it’s a balance — like, because you want to have some of these general memes that people understand. You’re like, oh, that’s funny, I don’t even work in this space and that made me laugh. And then some of them, it’s fun to do something that’s so inside baseball that you basically don’t know unless you are full-time obsessed with carbon removal.
And sometimes those shows, like — I don’t know if this is true either — the part of the theory of the inside baseball memes is that it’s a velvet rope. And if people see people lined up outside of a club at night with the velvet rope, you’re like, oh, there must be something good in there if they’re willing to line up for it. And I’m wondering if inside baseball memes has that sort of, oh, I wish I could understand what was happening in this joke. That’s the theory.
Heidi Lim: OK, yeah, totally. And it’s hard to know. Like, maybe it probably does. I’m sure there are people who are like, oh, OK, I wanna get on the inside of this. I don’t know if it actually works.
Ross Kenyon: So I don’t know, ’cause I mean, Reversing Climate Change is very much like this. The other show that I made and ran for a long time as sort of like an executive producer kind of role when Nori was active was Carbon Removal Newsroom. And that show was basically just, like, copied Stephen Lacey and Jigar Shah and, like, The Energy Gang and Political Climate — shows like that too were great format too. But it was very much trying to do shows that were about news and, like, very much industry inside baseball in the same way. Like, if you listen to a16z, if you’re not a venture capitalist or an MBA, you’re almost like, what are they even saying? This is like gibberish. But that’s on purpose, I think, like, they’re — VCs are elitist. Like, it’s, I think it’s, yeah, like—
Heidi Lim: The velvet rope, though. It made me want to be like, well, maybe I should get that MBA, because I don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. How?
Ross Kenyon: Totally, yeah. But Reversing Climate Change had the benefit of being — if you do anything for years, you get bored of it and you just can’t keep doing a show about, well, what’s your LCA like, and oh, carbon removal is having difficulty scaling, and what are your unit costs, and oh, is it solid sorbent or is it a liquid sorbent, and blah, blah, blah, policy. Like, that’s super important, and you have to know it to work in the space, you’re just not going to be that effective. But I think it’s important to just keep finding ways to be creative, because the only way that I have ever been able to tell if anything that I make is good or not is if I am entertained by it.
There are shows that I will edit and be like, I can’t tell — it wasn’t that fun to make and it’s not that fun to listen back to and edit. And sometimes people will be like, I love that show, and I’m like, really? I don’t even remember it because it didn’t stick with me. But you have to find ways where people — the way that this works, I think, is if anyone’s going to listen to your content or engage with it over time, it’s one, because maybe you caught their attention with the first show, and they stick around because they like you, specifically you as a person. And then if they like you, by the transitive property, they will like things that interest you that you keep making on your own.
And that’s what Reversing Climate Change is too, where there are shows where — I mean, one of my favorite shows that I’ve done is with Karl Marlantes. Do you know who he is? Did you watch the Ken Burns Vietnam War, Ken Burns, Lynn Novick Vietnam War series?
Heidi Lim: No. You have the most extensive library of — yeah, no, I haven’t seen that.
Ross Kenyon: It’s so good, it’s so well made. But he’s one of the main soldiers that he interviews.
Heidi Lim: Oh wow.
Ross Kenyon: Karl wrote several amazing books about his experience in Vietnam, and I’ve learned a lot from him, but I was somehow able to cajole him into appearing on the show. I’m like, for better or for worse, again, no one else in climate would have tracked Karl Marlantes down and had him do a show on a climate podcast. I’m so proud of that. And I’m not sure if everyone liked it. I’m not even — I don’t even know, because you don’t know a lot of the time. But I liked it. I’m really glad I got to do it. And that’s the only way I can tell if it’s quality work.
And it’s general — maybe someone will be searching for Karl Marlantes in their podcast app and now finds their way to me. I hope so. But whatever, I’m like, at least I’m trying to entertain myself, and people can come along for the ride, and if they love it, cool, and if not, then they’re just maybe not the natural customer of my intellect, and that’s OK too. I’m not necessarily — I’m not necessarily a non-niche taste, you know. I’m not like chocolate ice cream. I think I’m like some Neapolitan freak or something.
Heidi Lim: Neapolitan? You must be something like, I don’t know, macadamia nut. Is that one? That’s like maybe [unclear].
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, pistachio. I feel like — is not pistachio a part of Neapolitan though? But whatever, it’s a weird — I’m an acquired taste in some ways. Not everyone’s gonna love everything that I’m into, and that’s OK. Part of being in business is recognizing that you have to fire some customers too. Like, some people are just not the right fit for what you’re doing, and that’s OK. That’s not a personal thing necessarily.
Heidi Lim: Absolutely. I also — I think the thing I didn’t mention about how I feel climate media is, is there’s just not enough. Like, there are people who are going to be drawn to you, there are people who are not drawn to you that are going to be drawn to me, and vice versa. And I hope that we just need more of it. And I wish — I couldn’t count, like, how many major climate influencers, sort of like, on two hands. Like, I think there just needs to be more. So I think any shot in this little realm is a worthy shot, to see what sticks, you know?
Ross Kenyon: I feel entirely the same, and whenever people have messaged me about getting started in podcasting, I’ve always tried to be very encouraging. Because, like I’ve been saying, if people are going to listen, it’s because they like you specifically, and because personalities are different, this person isn’t necessarily a one-to-one competitor with you. In fact, they may bring net new people into climate media and focused on climate change. They’re going to appeal to someone else, and that’s good. The goal is to grow the number of people who are concerned with and acting on climate. The goal is not to build the most successful podcast for your own personal glory. Like, maybe that’s some people’s goal. I think that’s a bad goal.
I think I’d much rather just be encouraging, because you really never know. This is the Machiavellian version of it. Like, you don’t know which direction your life is going to go, and like, maybe you need someone, and it’s better to be kind to them overall. And that’s a good reason to help people even though they technically compete with you. But also, we work in climate change. I feel like fighting within carbon removal and climate is silly. Like, that’s kind of silly. I don’t like the status games of it. I just try to help where I can.
Heidi Lim: Yeah, OK. Circling back into, yeah, the people of climate question: what have you learned from being one of the biggest podcasters in climate?
Ross Kenyon: I don’t even know if that’s strictly true.
Heidi Lim: OK, one of the longest running. Besides Shayle Kann.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, Shayle’s — Shayle’s been at it for a long time, for sure. I don’t know. I think this tracks pretty closely with my life, but I came out of a previous period where I was very deontologically oriented for philosophy — just things being inherently right or wrong, you know, it doesn’t matter about the consequences, right? And I came out of a philosophical paradigm that was trying to figure out how to come up with, like, a comprehensive system of knowing all of ethics and how that could be done. And if that sounds like a crazy project, yeah, it’s super hard, and there’s a reason why no one’s successfully done it to completion, because there’s always edge cases and there’s always things that will break your system if you play with it.
And I came out of a grad program — I did a year of PhD work in political philosophy, and I can go into why specifically, it’s not super necessary to explain it here, but various things in that program disabused me of that being the correct way to think of things. So I ended up coming out of that in a space that was very nuance-loving, where I tried really hard to listen to everyone and read everything. In so far as I can pat myself on the back for anything, I feel like I’ve read deeply people who disagree with each other. Like, I’ve not just read stuff that I agreed with, I’ve sought out — I read super widely so I can have really cool conversations with conservatives. I can talk with Marxists, like, all of it. It’s like comes out as good podcasting that is fair, that I’m not, like, dunking on people in some mean-spirited way. And that’s been really fun.
But I think in some ways I realize that I’ve surrendered a lot of moral authority in that process. And recently I’ve been feeling like many of the things that are happening in the world are just wrong, and nuance is the inappropriate lens to understand them. And I’ve been trying to reclaim some of that moral authority. So I even look back on some of that podcasting that was very effective at having productive conversations and think, like, you know, actually, I probably shouldn’t have let that comment go, or like, maybe I should have been a little more aggressive in opposing this particular idea. And, like, nah — I’m recasting what I used to see as virtue now as vice. I’m trying to process that right now.
Heidi Lim: Wow, that was a different direction than I thought it would go. Yeah, I guess, I mean, yeah, it’s more of a media question than a people question in this case, I guess, for you. Like, I think that is a huge question happening in the podcasting space in general, right? Like, what’s platforming versus, like, cosigning? And yeah, like, this whole, like, both sides thing is kind of — I don’t know if this is what you’re saying, but like, yeah, sometimes not having some sort of, like, viewpoint or filter can become platforming, I guess. But it’s tough. I mean, you’re inviting a guest, and it’s like they came into your home and you’re feeding them lunch, and you know, they came and spent time with you. So it’s kind of a weird, awkward situation, right?
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I never wanted to invite someone to the show that was going to be a gotcha or that they’re there to embarrass them. In fact, one guest that we had on was doing work that maybe they characterize it as carbon removal — back when Christophe was co-hosting it with me — disagreed that it was carbon removal, and it felt kind of bad that we maybe ambushed this person. And I’m like, we probably just shouldn’t have had them on. I don’t know if that was ethical, to invite them into a space where they thought they were going to be having a cool conversation and now they’re, like, defending themselves. I regret that one.
Heidi Lim: Hard to say, you know. Like, yeah. OK, so I know both of us have thoughts on this concept of the kinds of people who could work in climate who choose to work on — in big tech and AI and other things, like software things. Software is king in the last 10 years, sort of thing. And you and I try to spend a lot of our efforts helping people to transition into climate work or choose climate work. And yeah, I wanted to talk about this video that I made recently that did really well. A lot of people resonated with this idea that there is a brain drain into Google, Meta, Twitter, whatever. What do you think about that?
Ross Kenyon: I think it’s true. After Nori wound down, I don’t know, I’ve been applying for full-time positions, and many of the most attractive ones are at Fortune 100 companies. And even the ones that relate to carbon removal, the wages there are substantial. They’re the kind of jobs where when you see them, literally everyone in carbon removal applies at the same time. Like, whenever Frontier puts a job out, Stripe puts a job out, Apple puts a job out — like, you know, like I’ll go to a meetup, it’s like, you guys apply for this? They’re like, yep, to a person, everyone applied for it. And watching that, I mean, it’s good though. Those are good jobs where people should be there. But there’s also just the brain drain element of it, where people aren’t working on climate at all just because the wage competition is just so intense.
And I’ve done a lot more — I never liked talking about this in public because I feel like talking about any good things that you do in public obliterates the moral value of it. But I’ve done — God. So, like, I’m in a tough spot because it’s relevant to this. OK, I’ve been doing more volunteering and trying to just get much more engaged in community matters, and it’s been a really positive experience for me. I’ve really built connections, and a lot of the work I gravitate towards is very care oriented.
And it blows my mind to go to some of these places and see people who are doing honestly some of the most valuable work on the planet, doing work in, like, hospice care with death and dying, or with transitional housing, and seeing these people and be like, you’re probably making, like, $35,000 a year and, like, living here. And then you’ll see someone who is coding something that steals your data and is creating some horrible monster out of it, the repercussions of which we may not see for years. And it’s like, as someone who came from an intellectual space that cares a lot about markets and the importance of how markets tell us about what type of work is valuable, seeing the discrepancy between these things has made me really question, like, if the systems that we use for determining value are not totally messed up in some way. And it can really mess you up.
I’ve known some people who recently were, you know, opposed to what was happening with the second Trump administration and policy changes, but they liked certain parts of it that they had a financial interest in. Like, I had met people that had AI investments or had worked in that space, or were involved in crypto or involved in some of the spaces that maybe the policy changes relative to the Biden administration were industry enhancing or clarifying in some way. And it made me feel really sad that people could be persuaded out of having moral authority because of some pecuniary interest and their very specific industry.
And it made me think of, like, one of the most hated passages that always freaks everyone out is the verse in the gospel about how if your right hand causes you to sin, you should cut it off. But I honestly feel like if, you know, being invested, being with, working in AI or investing in crypto or anything like that causes you to make bad decisions like that, you should just divest from it. Because if it’s going to cause you to turn a blind eye to things that are happening that are just not — you would not otherwise support — I think it’s imperative upon you to stop doing that.
Heidi Lim: I’m thinking about, like, my audience for who I’m trying to pull away from big tech are people who have that even inkling of a moral question of, do I actually feel good working on this, like, AI, whatever chatbot? And also, I mean, in the post, I’m also trying to appeal to people who are really who have their whole lives been seen as very smart and successful, who should be kind of, like, questioning if their talents are actually being used correctly. Like, it’s not just that there’s money there. It’s like, well, what’s the cost to you to work on something that isn’t morally aligned or morally dubious?
Like, I do understand why people work in big tech for, you know, for the paycheck, but I think a lot of people do it because they actually drink the Kool-Aid that what they are working on is important. And, you know, we all do, like, mental hoops to justify whatever we’re working on. But I think there’s a big subsection of people who have the golden handcuff problem, where they don’t actually want to be there anymore. They don’t actually feel like their talents are being used. They care more about some other thing, but they’re getting paid so well that it’s very hard to make that decision.
And so I’m kind of speaking to an audience who’s trying to ask, how — what else is there? How do I find that role? Because, you know, I have this other thing I do where I ask people, you know, if they can name 10 climate companies or 10 climate organizations. A lot of people can’t, but you can name 10 software companies. And yeah, it’s like, I think it’s on people like us to grease the wheels towards that choice. Like, the barrier to entry to even knowing what kind of jobs there are is really high, where big tech is really low because it’s everywhere. We use it every day.
Ross Kenyon: Bunch of good points there. I had a conversation with an old friend of mine recently. Do you know Drew Wilkinson? Drew is part of the Microsoft employees who were working to make Microsoft much more sustainability oriented, even though Microsoft is essentially the world leader in that, but still, you know, supporting fossil fuel extraction and involved in some not-so-nice parts of the economy as well. And I was talking to Drew about this recently. He’s been publishing about this, so I think it’s fair game to talk about. But he got a part-time job doing architectural salvage so he can reuse building materials. And that’s climate work. It pays for crap, but not everything is about, like, how quickly can you earn $300,000 and have a nice pile of income sitting aside.
I don’t know. I had a thing recently where — I respect Drew a lot for this, by the way. I think it really — it was inspiring to me to talk to him recently for it. I had a client recently that I also just thought that they were doing things that was just kind of going to bankrupt them. I thought they were going about this in a bad way. And I’m a contract employee, and I’m telling them to cut expenses and therefore am just sort of de facto in the sights of cost-cutting measures for bringing this up. But I try to have the attitude of, if you’re paying me to tell you the truth, I’m going to tell you the truth, even if it might mean that I’m going to lose my job.
And I’d like being able to feel good about providing enough value to do that is worth the risk of me losing the short-term paycheck. And as I get older, rather than getting more conservative in this way, where I’m more trying to protect what I have — I have a family, I don’t want to lose things, like those things are really hard. Like, I’m the primary breadwinner, I need to make sure I do these things — but I also don’t want to sell my soul in the process. And I feel more comfortable for ethical reasons just, like, telling the truth and doing things that are individually hard but make me feel like I’m being as honorable as I reasonably can.
And obviously I suck at this too, and I fail at this. I am not, like, putting myself as some saint. I’m, like, the lowest of the low in some ways to actually really try to be a decent person. But ultimately, the responsibility for your actions is 100% your own. Some people are dealt terrible hands and they do not make good decisions, and there are probably good reasons for them failing to make good decisions, and we should have mercy for them and understand that. But I also think how you choose to be in the world is your responsibility, and I just want to be able to be proud of it.
And I think if I took a job that was doing things that I felt icky about, and I worked that job for 10 years so I could earn good money and I can do good stuff later — I don’t want to do good stuff later. I might not be here later. It’s my job to do that now. I don’t like talking like this though, because it makes me sound like I think I’m some fantastic, wonderful person. But that is how I’m trying to make more decisions now these days.
Heidi Lim: I mean, it is a — I mean, I feel that way too. It’s like a place of privilege to be like, you know, like, to make that decision. But what I’m saying about the golden handcuffs is there are plenty of people who have those privileges and could make those decisions who either don’t know how to — and hopefully they come to people like us to get that guidance — or they’re just not there yet. Like, they don’t feel that weight enough yet. But yeah. And I never blame the people who are experiencing, you know, these choices, because it’s hard. Like, the system we live in, a capitalist system, that is making things harder every day, it seems, for us to make choices like that, because we are being pressed to live with less over time. And then, you know, there are, like, crazy amounts of money in things like AI.
So it, yeah, it does. I think it really does come down to that. What is the cost of your soul? Like, what is the cost of feeling, like, emptiness inside on a daily basis because you’re not, like, doing something that feels actually aligned with you, or you feel ashamed talking to your friends about what you’re working on? You know, those kinds of social things, they really do matter.
Ross Kenyon: My wife and I have this funny split where she’s very justice oriented and I’m very mercy oriented. And obviously you need a mix of both to have, like, a healthy relationship to causality in action. But — I yeah. What do you do when someone doesn’t realize that what they’re doing isn’t wrong? Or maybe they’ve suppressed the feelings of wrongness and are just happy to be getting that good paycheck and are on autopilot for a while until they have a chance to do something really positive later? Like, shame can be potentially productive if used appropriately. But I’m also, like, really cautious about entering into that judgmental space in that way.
I think that how it makes you feel, I think it’s also a dangerous sign, because becoming self-righteous — I was self-righteous recently with people that I felt disappointed in their actions. And it’s a drug. Like, I feel the anger surge. And even if it’s well applied and deserving, as far as you know — which you might actually be wrong about in some cases, you see all the nuance, like, baggage. It’s just, like, in the back of my head, even, like, trying to speak coherently. That’s, like, where I’m coming from. But you can just, like, feel how it makes you feel.
Like, I don’t want — I say this, like, lowest of the low thing. I’m, like, trying to be aware that even, like, as a secular person, I like the Christian notion of sin. And what I like about it too is that it’s not about — there’s not really, like, gradations of it. It’s like you’re embedded in it. And so, like, one person who does something that’s like the worst crime imaginable, and then the person who just holds anger in their heart are both equally guilty of murder in this way of understanding sin, which might strike some people as crazy. And maybe it is, but I don’t know.
I don’t like being able to be put in a position where I’m feeling that anger and I’m putting myself above other people and I’m casting out these people who have profaned. And I think people who get too enamored of judgment give voice to, like, a kind of a sick part of us that likes going to war. It’s, like, very similar to — it’s battle. I don’t know if you’ve ever had that surge in you, but I don’t know. I don’t think that we should be experiencing as much of that. I think we should be experiencing more mercy and more forgiveness and more understanding where possible.
I think there’s plenty of places to get angry, or culture rewards anger. I feel like Trump won the office primarily by, like, just feeding anger and feeding it things that are easy targets of anger. And I just — even when I’m justified, I tend not — I don’t want to go to anger. And when I do get there, I feel some amount of shame in myself that I lost control, and that that actually isn’t what the world needs more of, and I have somehow, like, let it down. Has this gone off the rails for you? Is this, like, too far afield?
Heidi Lim: No, it’s OK. It’s OK.
Ross Kenyon: It’s only OK though. So I think these are kind of weird. They’re—
Heidi Lim: Very relevant. These are very relevant thoughts that we all grapple with. I mean, the reason why I have this, like, very anti-shame bent in my platform is because, yeah, I agree. Like, I think shame and anger is a gate to keep people out, and it is something that divides us. Like, I feel that. Yeah. There’s just — I really feel that the climate movement would be larger, the environmental movement would be larger, if we didn’t have shame attached to so much of it.
Like, there’s this, like, purity test that comes along with a lot of environmentalism. And I really think it’s because historically environmentalism was a very white movement. And that’s something that, like, you know, we — people of color, people who are people — like, lots of — there are people who are not white in the environmental movement who have felt not welcomed in the environmental movement. And there’s these layers of, like, I don’t know, there’s, like, stereotypes of vegans being holier than thou and things like that. But there’s lots of people who are vegan or people who are environmentalists who are not gonna be shaming you for not recycling one thing, you know.
Like, that kind of purity testing is just gatekeeping. It prevents people from trying their best and it makes people hate environmentalists. And we don’t want that. There’s no use in that. So I guess I’m glad that there’s, like, other versions of people who have talked about that more, and I want to contribute to that, like, kind of winding back of that shame environmentalism, or, like, helping perpetuate a different type of a more inclusive and more understanding version of environmentalism.
Ross Kenyon: Sounds nice.
Heidi Lim: I think it can be more inviting and joyful. It doesn’t have to be shame.
Ross Kenyon: I don’t like the — there’s some version of it. I feel like both the left and the right both have a version of it where one environmental failure on the level of individual choice negates the overall approach. It’s like, oh, well, Al Gore just drank out of a Styrofoam cup.
Heidi Lim: Oh, gotcha. Yeah, exactly.
Ross Kenyon: And then, like, the horseshoe theory around it, it’ll be like, Al Gore drank out of a cup, a bad cup, and, like, who is that good for? This is like the point about anger, and maybe it relates to shame here too. But people, like — I’m a — are you on Reddit? Are you a Redditor at all?
Heidi Lim: It’s the one thing that I prevented myself from getting into ’cause I know how bad it’ll be for me.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, man, Reddit is one of those things too, where there’s so many subreddits that have a justice orientation. I don’t mean it in a good way. I mean it’s like someone does something bad to someone and they get, like, slapped, like, on the street, or, like, someone will, like, kick off a side, like a mirror, on a car because they cut them off, and that person will crash their bike or whatever. And there’s, like, watching it, you’re just like, you feel this, like, oh, like the justice of, like, oh, they got what was coming to them kind of thing. And it’s just, like, there’s so much of that on the Internet.
The Internet is sort of made for, like, feeding — like, I can see this stuff and avoid it and, like, try not to encounter it, but it does something to you biochemically. And I think that’s, like, what I think the Trump administration has been so good at tapping into, is just, like, feeding that terrible part of ourselves that likes seeing the person open-palm slapped in a Carl’s Jr. for something, like, terrible. And Twitter is hand in hand with that, like, people are — everything’s World Star right now, which shouldn’t be.
Heidi Lim: And what a reference there. It really is a — it goes to, like, moral erosion. Like, what does it help us do? Like, it doesn’t help anybody except for us to feel a little bit better for, like, a second. Well, we’re all getting oppressed at the same time.
Ross Kenyon: I think it’s good to, like, acknowledge one’s shadow and see that, like, wow, even I, who consider myself to be someone who cares about mercy, can be moved to feelings of joy at retaliation and retribution. Like, I have that in my soul. Like, I thought I was, like, above that, or trying to — it’s still in me. And, like, being able to acknowledge that too, I think, is where spiritual growth, if it can happen, is likely to happen. ’Cause you’re like, wow, I’m just, I’m, like, down in the muck with literally everyone else, no matter how hard I try. And I keep aspiring to crawl out of the muck, and there I am again.
Heidi Lim: Unfortunately, you’re still human.
Ross Kenyon: Very. Well, for now. We’ll see. We’ll see what happens, right?
Heidi Lim: But yeah, TBD if Ross ascends beyond his human constraints. OK, I guess I will — I wanna let you go at some point. But we obviously could — there’s lots of things we can talk about. But I guess I’ll leave with the last thing, which is, I on this platform am trying to help people to see that there’s reasons to not feel complete despair. Like, there’s actually reasons to feel like progress is being made. And maybe this has gone back to the media thing. Like, I feel like that’s something people miss. They’re not reading good climate news. Like, there are obviously, like, Alaina Wood, garbage queen — like, she’s somebody who’s trying to combat that with bringing good climate news to people. And we need more of that. What’s keeping you going in this work, and what are some things that keep you hopeful?
Ross Kenyon: I’ve been spending time in those spaces recently that are people that I mentioned who are doing care work or things that are not remunerative but are worth doing for their own sake, and people who feel called to renounce the status and the financial rewards that come from seeking a tech job. I think people who have chosen something different, not because they had to, but because that is how they want to spend their time. And that’s also someone like Drew. It’s both people who are working in some of these housing things that I have met, and then also people that just sort of, like, came out of a tech environment and realize, well, I’m not even sure I want to go back into that. In fact, I’d like to use my talents for something else.
And I think that kind of spiritual change that leads people to do things like that makes me reimagine how I’m living my life too. Because obviously I post things on LinkedIn, I care about status. I like acquiring new affiliations because it provides a lot of validation, where you can say, like, oh, people think I’m smart and cool and, like, I am invited to do this high-status activity, and isn’t that great. And I feel really challenged in, in the best kind of way when I see people that are not doing that at all. I feel like I do it in a self-aware way, which is good. It’s better than not. But I respect a lot the people who have broken free of that sort of, like, deep worldly pursuit.
It’s crazy though, because if you are a family person, you essentially have to make sure your family is provided for and is financially secure, and you can’t really stay in one place in your career either. Like, I obviously want to keep growing and doing more prestigious, more remunerative work, more people listening to my podcast, more people reading what I write. And at some point I’m just, like, seeing people who are not in that rat race, and even if I’m not able to fully follow them, they inspire me, and I think that’s good.
I like when people do things that have a pro-social or pro-environmental way of doing things that don’t tell anyone about it either. I always like those secret moments of just, I did the right thing because it was a good thing to do. And I like being able to see small glimmers of beauty in that way that still exists. Because, like, LinkedIn is one of those places where it’s like, if you did a good deed and didn’t tell all of LinkedIn about it, did it actually happen? It’s nice to just feel like — LinkedIn, yeah. I don’t know.
I think some of those things that are lower status are just sort of small human-scale kindnesses, or things of moments of self-deprivation that no one else knows about, but that was the correct ecological or environmental or social move you’d have made. And again, I feel like this all the time and I’m, like, not optimized for this at all. But I’ve been encountering more people like that recently. And I used to think that they were kind of irrational in a way. And maybe it is irrational in a little bit of a way, because it doesn’t make a difference overall — like, maybe in aggregate it does. But I like that people have chosen the less comfortable, least comfortable thing for themselves, for some ethical or spiritual purpose beyond just, well, it’s my status, it’s my career, I had to do it for my career. You know, like, I like that they went for it. I care about that more. I didn’t always care about that.
And this is probably something, if you’d interviewed me a month earlier, I probably wouldn’t even have given this answer. But I just had some experiences recently that have been really challenging and productive in this way.
Heidi Lim: So I’m hearing that you’re seeing, I guess, people hold onto their morals or make choices that no one sees, and that they’re good choices.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I think part of it is — I didn’t even make this connection until now, but have you seen the film A Hidden Life?
Heidi Lim: I don’t think so, no. I’m sorry, I haven’t gotten any references that you’ve brought to me today.
Ross Kenyon: It’s OK. This is the danger of hanging out with me. It’s not you, it’s me, Heidi.
Heidi Lim: All right, that’s good to know.
Ross Kenyon: It’s a Terrence Malick film. I think it won several Oscars too. But it’s about an Austrian farmer in World War II. He’s a, you know, quite devout Catholic, and he refuses to swear a loyalty oath to Hitler and is eventually put to death for it. And it’s based on a George Eliot quote about how civilization advances by these people who do the courageous things but are buried in unmarked graves, essentially, that no one ever visits. And, like, this person eventually became beatified, which is the road to sainthood. But at the time, like, it didn’t stop World War II, it didn’t stop Hitler. But there’s something that’s still very meaningful about his choosing to do that.
Even though he had a family, but just would not serve in the army, would not swear the oath, even though everyone’s trying to convince him, like, we’re going to put you in a hospital and, like, just let you be an orderly in there, it’s going to be fine. He’s like, I’m just not willing to do this. Put me to death if you want. And it’s irrational, it’s crazy, but it’s so moving. I just — there’s something about that. I’m like, I am meeting people that have that kind of character lately, and I’m like, I wish I would have half the amount of character this person does. And it’s just been really, really beautiful. I feel like I’ve been learning, learning about myself and about the world and the kinds of people that are worth following.
Heidi Lim: What a — yeah, a beautiful end. I mean, I add to this conversation — thank you, Ross, for chatting on this inaugural podcast video interview. I mean, and I’ll make sure that we get people to go watch your content, and ’cause you’re gonna have video soon. Hopefully — I know you have video on Spotify — and hopefully other people will be inspired by your work over in the podcasting sphere and beyond.
Ross Kenyon: Thank you. And likewise, I’m happy to take your cues here, and I’ll likely follow you with the right set of nudges. Yes, I’ll just come and do stuff with you more often. Thank you for having me. I’m so honored I’m the first one here. I’ve learned a lot from you over the years. I’m happy we’re friends, happy to be supportive of your endeavors, and wish you great success doing this.
Heidi Lim: Thank you. Yeah, hopefully in a year we can look back and there will be some growth. We’ll see.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, OK.
Heidi Lim: Thanks, Ross.
Ross Kenyon: Thank you. All right.
