Most carbon removal content is highly technical and very serious.
But it doesn’t have to be.
So, what would it look like to produce carbon removal content that is a little looser? A little less informational? A little more appealing to a lay audience? And a little more fun?
On this bonus episode of Reversing Climate Change, Ross sits down with fellow memeologist and Thanks a Ton Cofounder Siobhan Montoya Lavender to have an informal conversation that infuses some fun in the carbon removal community.
Ross and Siobhan discuss how they think about choosing between science and funny in the context of a meme and describe the value in producing content that is less utilitarian and more accessible to the general population.
Listen in for the story of Ross’ harrowing experience with a group of very aggressive crows and enjoy 30 minutes of lighthearted carbon removal content!
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Carbon Removal Newsroom, the news show that ran alongside this one, is over. Its episodes are still up, on the feed Climate Workers Anonymous now uses.
Carbon Removal Memes is still going.
Resources
‘Moisture Swing Sorbent for Carbon Dioxide Capture from Ambient Air’ in Environmental Science & Technology
Carbon Removal Memes for Climate Restorative Teens on Twitter
Carbon Removal Memes on Instagram
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: 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. Siobhan Montoya Lavender, memeologist here at Nori and also at Thanks a Ton — which, by the time this airs, your new website will be live. Hey, we’ll link to that in the show notes. Thanks a Ton is super cool. Why don’t you tell people about it if they’ve never heard of it before?
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Sure. Yeah, Thanks a Ton is a website that we built for gifting carbon dioxide removal, because we have the assumption — the unvalidated assumption — that people want to give carbon dioxide removal. So we’ll see. We’ve been in operation for just about a year now, so we’re still pretty brand new. And we also try to make fun content and make it fun and lighthearted for people, and kind of take away some of the — most people interact on a personal level with carbon removal in terms of buying offsets, like offsetting your flight or offsetting something. And we’re kind of like, hey, nobody really wants to do that, and people don’t. And what if we get people to interact with it on a more lighthearted, fun level, and they’re like, what — gift it?
Yeah, really. It was Dr. Kara at a party one day. It was just something we made up, and jokingly said, we should start a company on this, and then [unclear] and I were just like, yeah, let’s do that. And then we built it.
Ross Kenyon: She’s a proper scientist. What’s she doing monkeying around with eCards?
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: And yes, I want you to ask me that. These are proper scientific eCards. She is the one that has the wackiest, best ideas, man. She just comes up with funny puns and funny little — yeah, she’s got a lot of humorous ideas. She’s also our sanity check. She’ll be like, actually, this isn’t quite correct. So she’s the one that, if I ever make a meme that clearly has a scientific tilt, I always have to run it by Kara and be like, A, is this funny? And B, does this come across as really stupid to the PhDs?
Ross Kenyon: It’s like — what’s the line? When you have to choose between the truth and the legend, print the legend. God, what is that quote? You know what I’m talking about. But I think if you have to choose between science and funny for the pieces of a meme, you print the funny, right?
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Print the funny? I mean, I don’t know, because I want people to understand the science. I want people to, you know — I don’t want to spread misinformation.
Ross Kenyon: Well, okay, well, within certain bounds then. Yeah, like, what’s an example? It’s like our “you installed the sorbent upside down” joke, you know, and all of us — [unclear] to install it the other way. Some of them probably do, I guess.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: That’s low risk. That’s low-risk misinformation.
Ross Kenyon: I hope someone would see it and be like, hey, that’s not how it works. And then you’re like, well, that’s part of the joke, is that no one actually knows unless you’re really close to it. I think the only DAC I’ve interacted with in real life was Klaus Lackner’s moisture swing. I saw that at ASU several years ago at this point.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: That’s cool. You got to see that live?
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. Probably you could install it upside down. So I think I just made that up as a funny thing, but no one thought that was especially funny.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: That one always cracks me up whenever we reference it.
Ross Kenyon: But I feel like the universe, our audience, has told me multiple times, no.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: I’m like, seriously though, are you sure you wouldn’t like to reconsider?
Ross Kenyon: Well, I guess I should stop trying to tell this joke. I don’t know. I think it’s going to land someday.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: I’m on your side. Keep making it. It’s like the curve for Family Guy jokes, where it’s funny and they keep doing it and it gets really unfunny, and then they just keep doing the same joke and then it becomes funny again. That’s the curve that they’re trying to hit.
Ross Kenyon: Well, there’s a legitimacy to that. I think that can actually happen. There are definitely cases where you just keep beating a dead horse and then it becomes like, okay, it’s funny again, we’ve made it through the trough. But this joke wasn’t funny to start, except for me. And for me the wave of it is funny. It’s still pretty funny. It’s still funny, like, no dimensionality to it. It’s linear.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Yeah. You’re just measuring from the back end of the wave, if only, you know.
Ross Kenyon: And then it just — yeah, that’s right. That’s basically how I’m judging my memes.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Which is good. I think if it doesn’t make you laugh, I don’t know how it’s supposed to make anyone else laugh.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, agreed. It should at least make you chuckle, you know. Not all of a sudden — some memes, it’s like, I laugh out loud, and then some memes I go, that’s funny.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Yeah, those give me good — those are, like, we even call those ticklers, where you’re like, ha ha, I’m tickled by this. I’m not full-on laughing at it. Amused. It’s like an actual response to humor as opposed to just cracking up.
Ross Kenyon: Have you had any that really cracked you up recently?
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: And no one’s going to know — I’m pulling by a thread here. What have we done recently? The Lisa Frank ones you made, I thought, were really, really good. Have we deployed them yet?
Ross Kenyon: By the time this airs — which, we’re recording this, I think, a week ahead of time. I don’t know, maybe we should even talk about the show. I didn’t introduce myself, by the way. I’m Ross Kenyon and I’m one of Nori’s co-founders. Hopefully — presumably you know that if you’re listening, but maybe this is your first episode and you don’t know. But that’s me. We’re just goofing around talking about memes and not trying to have every show be a serious interview topic. I think it’s fun. What are the shows that we’ve been referencing? SmartLess is one that you’ve been talking a lot about, and Fast and Loose.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Yeah, yeah.
Ross Kenyon: Asa is not here right now, but we’d like him to come back. We’re going to have a sort of meme lab writers’ room regular podcast series. The thesis of this, as far as I have encapsulated it, is that humor is underrepresented — people having fun in carbon removal. I feel like it can be a little bit stiff. I don’t know, is that unfair? Do people goof around more than maybe meets the eye?
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: No, I’d say that’s fair. I don’t know — people, tweet us if you disagree, but I’d say that. Yeah, in general it’s a pretty, you know, serious — or if it’s fun, it’s more of a techie thing. I don’t really know how to articulate the vibe of the carbon removal industry, partially because it keeps evolving, you know. It’s a rapidly evolving community and niche topic. But no, I wouldn’t say there’s a whole lot of humor in there. It might just be a size thing too — there’s not that many people around.
Ross Kenyon: With a couple thousand people who follow Carbon Removal Memes for Climate Restorative Teens — which, if you haven’t followed it on Twitter, it’s also on Instagram — there’s a hunger, or maybe even a thirst, some might say a thirst, for jokes relevant to a carbon removal audience. We had strong responses. People seemingly want their industry reflected in this way.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Yeah, yeah. I think we did just post one of the Lisa Frank ones. I don’t know if people get the kind of juxtaposition humor we were going for here.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, it might be — if you’re of a similar generation as Siobhan and I, you almost certainly remember Lisa Frank. The dark contrasting captions with Lisa Frank images is a deep internet culture thing. I don’t know how deep that is, but it’s certainly internet culture. Perhaps [unclear] the shallow internet culture going. And some of the ones I’ve gone for have been like — we did recently the, I loved the kid, like the high school band kid with the clarinet from marching band. They said I could become anything, so I became a god.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: Which — that became a carbon remover. That’s got to be one of the oldest.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Yeah, I know, those are easy.
Ross Kenyon: We’re like, all right, should we bother swapping that clarinet for something else, like maybe stick a crappy DAC facility in the backdrop? That’s like — goddamn, just put the DAC facility in there. It’s just recognizable, you know. I don’t know if a lot of people are going to see a pyrolysis machine and be like, that’s it, you know, I know what you’re talking about. There’s not, like, a solar panel or a wind turbine that’s so obviously itself, and you know what it stands for. Carbon removal is like — what if there’s a [unclear] by a physical process in the shallow seas, and it drifts down to the bottom of the ocean? The visual grammar of that is not known. It is an unnamed, inscrutable thing.
So anyway, I just called it a pyrolysis machine, and I’ve done that a few times. I’ve noticed that — pyrolysis and paralysis are so similar. My favorite: I’ve had people, often people who are new to carbon removal, say carbon renewal to me a number of times. Have you ever heard someone say carbon renewal?
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: I have not, but I feel like that’s a similar slip to what I just did, where it’s similar enough that you can make that mistake easily. I mean, to be fair, I don’t think we’ve done a good job as a community really articulating our vocabulary, you know.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. Some of the words are maybe just inherently off-putting. I was disc golfing with some friends a while ago, and one of my buddies is a geologist, and he brought a colleague along, and he was saying that he typically works with an office not in the time zone in which he’s working — this is a dumb way of saying it. So he lives in Phoenix, but he works with an office from where he moved from, which is like Oklahoma or something. And so he’s like, yeah, I don’t really work with your friend, though, I’m oftentimes working alone over here. And I’m like, ah, what kind of work has you sequestered? He’s like, what? I didn’t even miss a beat. Sorry, I don’t know why I had to say it in such an obnoxious way. There’s a line from — I’m going to use that now. My buddy saw that, he loved it. Did you ever see Burn After Reading?
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: No.
Ross Kenyon: John Malkovich. It’s like an alcoholic who gets fired from the CIA and he decides to work on his memoir, and there’s a running joke from that movie where he’s like, I’m writing a mémoire. People are like, what? Because he’s saying it in the French way, mémoire. Some of my friends now call me that. They’re like, I’m working on a mémoire. And the sequestered was clearly a mémoire moment. I was like, damn it, that is me, I ruined it, that’s who I am, huh? But anyway, sequestration is an ugly, weird word. Removal has a subtracting, taking-away quality to it. It sticks in the mouth too. It sounds like renewal to some people. That’s what you’re saying, right? Carbon removal doesn’t have that something. We don’t have a refined lexicon.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Yeah. And yes, we have lots of terms that we use, and little by little I think we’re refining them. But I think — I mean, still I think we’re struggling between people understanding CCS and CDR, you know. That’s a challenge for people. And then just getting our vocabulary clean and locked down. And again, it’s a niche, burgeoning industry, so I don’t think this is abnormal, but I would say that we could do a better job as a community picking our words and then consistently using them, clearly, with more of a lay audience.
Ross Kenyon: What’s even better? I like some of the moves toward — kind of, [unclear], and others have said this for a long time — focusing in terms of tonne-years of carbon stored, or carbon storage. Is that better? It’s like one of those things where maybe scientists think it’s more accurate; to the lay person, is this a helpful thing? Who are we trying to be more accurate for? Is it the [unclear]?
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Yeah. No, I agree. Like, who is the audience? Because I do think there’s an academic-y audience, and then there’s just — we need people to be on board with CDR, and so we need them to know what it is, and let’s tell those people what it is. And then sometimes I don’t think we do the best job at clearly explaining it, and we mingle terms that are academic with, you know —
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. Do we want to say carbon removal and storage, or do we want to say carbon removal and have that indicate that it also includes storage?
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Yeah. There’s some work to be done in there, definitely.
Ross Kenyon: Parts of it have a bit of a gatekeeping element to it, too, where I see some of these people — I know, I feel it in my own heart. I’ll see someone, or a new organization devoted to carbon removal in some way, and I’ll be like, who’s this weekender, where did you come from, pontificating on this? But then I’m really going back and reading some of the stuff I wrote or said early on, or I’m having a meeting — I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.
I remember pitching, like, Nori will be successful because we are trying to make sure that people can make money from doing things that are environmentally positive. Which I still think is a fine thesis. I think if you can marry those two things and it genuinely added up, it would be quite powerful. But I remember treating this almost like it was a new idea, when clearly that was a big part of carbon markets from the very start. This is not some sort of genius. I remember presenting it to someone who is extremely seasoned these days, and in hindsight I wonder if they were just being nice to me. Or, wow, if it works, it’ll be really, really amazing — you’re also 40 years late, and the details of this matter. Basically, I think that’s what they were trying to tell me.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Yeah, I think that’s their sweet summer child, as a younger — the younger may not, you know. When do we all become kind of seasoned and jaded within this industry? I don’t know, but I think there is a moment. When you get in, you’re like, holy crap, carbon removal is so cool — and it is, that’s the thing, it is. Like, you don’t know about carbon removal, then you discover it, and it’s so amazing and exciting. And you know, I think it’s — and you dive head first. And then I think at some point we all — I don’t know, read the IPCC report or something, and get a little jaded.
Ross Kenyon: I know. I’ve thought about this stuff too. I feel like quite a dilettante. I think I’ve told this story before — I think we’ve talked about it — someone described me as a carbon removal expert once. Do not come to me for the latest study. Kara, she’s the one you want. Go talk to Jane Flegal.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Think about it — it’s all like a young industry. You know, I respect the hesitancy around accepting the title, but at the end of the day, you’ve been in this industry longer than, I don’t know, 90% of people in this industry.
Ross Kenyon: Just sheer inertia, because I’m allowed to do the dumb stuff that I do for years and no one’s caught on yet, and I’m just making podcasts and memes and somehow have a job. But I get asked by people younger than me, or I’ve presented — like, universities are places that have asked me to speak. Like, what advice would you have for younger people? I feel incredibly lucky. I basically got a miracle into a career I had no business being in. I guess being a generalist means you’re flexible, being curious, having different skills, but I have no way of predicting this would have happened. I don’t know that I have replicable life advice at all.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: I mean, I don’t know, maybe this is self-congratulatory because I think I’m in a similar field to you, but I do think there is an essential role for — I don’t know, for lack of a better term — kind of like carbon communicators, and just people that are making the space feel accessible and are distributing information, you know? So I think podcasting, yeah. You could argue, like, what am I doing, I’m just having a podcast about this. But I personally know multiple AirMiners that found carbon removal and the AirMiners community through the Reversing Climate Change podcast. So, you know, there you go. That is always value-add.
Ross Kenyon: The value-add. Yeah, I’m always really excited. Is there additionality to that, though? Would they have found it if I did not exist? What’s the counterfactual? Probably would have just gotten there in the next five days. And then I’m like, oh yeah, I think you have a tendency — tongue in cheek — I’m being too hard on myself, and I’m hamming it up for the purpose of goofing around. But it is a warm feeling. I like when people appreciate the show, or it makes them laugh or think. Those are always super rewarding. Hopefully this is going to do that. I don’t know. We’re going to see, Siobhan. I don’t know.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Let us know. Let us know.
Ross Kenyon: It’s like, do you want to spend time in carbon removal, but not seriously? Do you want to just be around carbon removers and just adjacent discussions? Is that — isn’t it?
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Yeah. Are you — yeah, I don’t know.
Ross Kenyon: Do you want to replace the other, you know, humorless podcast in your life with carbon removal instead? I know. It’s kind of a crazy idea, isn’t it? You’re like, you don’t want the super — like, if Na’im has had a joke, I’m out. Like, do you want to do that, Na’im? We’re coming for you, Na’im. And I just really — getting Na’im. I love Na’im, he’s terrific. The more good carbon removal content, the better, honestly.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: It’s good. Yeah, some of the best.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, but do you want — so, so this is the kind of episode where you don’t want that. You’re saying no to Na’im, and then — but you also don’t want to go listen to true crime. You don’t want a grisly murder, and you don’t want [unclear]. So this is what you get. So many assumptions.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: I feel like I would love the stats on it. I feel like true crime podcasts are like 40% of all podcasts. Maybe more.
Ross Kenyon: A lot out there, man.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: I barely — like, wow, I just made this stuff up. There must be an appetite. That right there must be an — I don’t personally listen to them, but there must be an appetite, because there sure are a lot.
Ross Kenyon: I feel like sometimes my self-knowledge is not always so strong, and one proxy that I use for evaluating how burned out I am is what I’m listening to. And I can tell, the more travel books there are in my listening — I’m like, oh, cool. I’m listening to a book right now called Canoeing the Congo.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: But I’ve also already listened to, like, two others doing the same thing. It’s like, okay, I’m tired. And then last week I started listening to some true crime stuff, and I’m like, oh God, do I need a vacation? Am I okay?
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: So that’s your barometer for knowing if you’re burned out or not — what’s my podcast queue look like?
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, seriously.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: I feel like if it ever gets into, like, horror or survival stuff, then I’m like, okay, I really — I’m done.
Ross Kenyon: I need to only go half [unclear]. I’m like, which badly written zombie apocalypse saga haven’t I listened to?
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: All right, there you go.
Ross Kenyon: So where does this content fall? Are we then producing the “I’m not burned out” content, or are we producing the Friday, maybe I’m burned out from work but I just want to laugh at carbon content?
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Yeah, I think this show should be something like Friday happy hour with your colleagues within the carbon removal industry, or [unclear].
Ross Kenyon: I like that. Yeah, so there’s going to be some discussion, but I don’t think it should be always so utilitarian or so tightly focused on imparting information. Like, I love Carbon Removal Newsroom — probably my favorite podcast that’s out there, and the quality of the info I think is really high, and there’s nothing else quite like it.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Well, I literally take notes during that podcast, kid you not. Like, I will take notes during that podcast.
Ross Kenyon: You’re absolutely right, the brainpower on that show is intense. And I rewind it a lot, you know. I think I’ll listen to one section and be like, wait a minute, I didn’t quite catch that, and go back.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: I was driving. A second, I was driving during that — what was that part there? I can go back and check it out again.
Ross Kenyon: But okay. So not that, and not true crime or something horrible like that. Is that our only option, or true crime? God. There’s some Michael Scott thing where he’s like, it’s this or this, and there’s literally nothing in between. Let’s find that [unclear] with our plethora of offers.
So many of those pictures come from — and oftentimes I’ll remember. I was thinking of a Peep Show quote I really like the other day, which was the protagonist watching a couple fight. He wants to hook up with the girl of the couple, and he’s like, stop, literally rubbing my hands, watching them fight. I was trying to find — could this be, like, if they announced that there was new funding or a new opportunity for carbon, or just the IRA getting moving along? Stop, literally rubbing my hands, carbon removers. But a lot of times, even if I could find the right image and caption, is this reference just too obscure? Like, is it doing anything? Are you the Conquistador of the Useless, as Werner Herzog called it?
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: So that’s me, the Werner Herzog of memes. You heard it here first. The struggle is real.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: The struggle is real. Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. I wonder how this is going to go. I wonder what’s going to happen when Asa’s here. We’re going to try and do this with a third around. So yeah, we’re able to carry it mostly just because we’re buds and it’s just like talking to your friend. We think — we think we’re carrying it.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Yeah, we think we’re carrying it.
Ross Kenyon: I thought a great meme about this too, that was like two comedians on a podcast, and the one guy was like, we are literally modern-day philosophers, and then the next panel was that person on stage telling a joke. It’s like, yeah, that is podcasting. It does have a tendency to make you think you’re above your station in a certain kind of way. I do have things where it says people should be listening to me by the thousands. Why not? Why not? Does it make you feel grandiose? Does it elevate your sense of self-importance?
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Based on the last 30 minutes, I’m going to say no. No. Most of it is making fun of ourselves or talking about our process of making internet jokes. So, but hey, you never know. Maybe people want to hear this.
Ross Kenyon: Do you think of yourself as a modern-day philosopher?
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: I would not think of myself as a modern-day philosopher.
Ross Kenyon: Now, is it — okay, we can edit this part, but just for point of order: should we do this crow thing, or should we not?
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: I think we should, but I think it’s going to have to come about organically. I feel like there’s only a moment that we’re going to be talking. For those of you that know — if this somehow makes it in, Ross is having some issues with some crows that we occasionally discuss at the writers’ room, and it’s actually pretty charming stuff and could make good podcast fodder. But I feel like it comes up organically, typically, and then that’s when it strikes me as the most charming — not when you just try to find a way in.
Ross Kenyon: What, the crow discussion? Yeah. Okay, time for Ross’s crow saga. I mean, it’s over at this point. It ended, like, a month ago.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Then we should talk about it. We should talk about it. Let’s use the moment before it’s too long past. I know it’s receding. People ask about what’s happening with your crows.
Ross Kenyon: Receding distantly into my memory. Yeah, so I had a crazy crow experience recently. I didn’t know this is what happens, but we keep chickens at my house. So I heard these crows cawing and they were on top of the chicken run fence, and I came out to see what was happening. And the crows didn’t fly away. They were aggressively cawing, and I made moves to be like — not that I would ever do this, like, attack — are you all right, what, guy? — like, kind of jerk your head forward and throw your arms up, trying to scare these crows.
They are super loud and there’s a bunch of them, and instead of flying away, which they would normally do, they started cawing more aggressively and swooped at me, and I went from being super aggro to running like a little baby as fast out of there as I could, like, these crows are going to tear me to shreds.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Sounds like — what the hell is happening? And it’s like, what’s happening? Do they think that they now own this yard? Do crows just have property through the —
Ross Kenyon: They think that they — and I’m like, well, I can’t let them just take over my yard, so I had to kind of take a stand somewhere else. But yeah, I’m like, do I have to fight crows, or get [unclear]? Like, I don’t want to hurt these animals or anything, but I also have a dog and everything.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: But then you found out that the reason they were being so aggressive —
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, the reason. You’re trying to force me along on my — I’m really looking into this too much. I’m moving the crow story along. But the reason was because they had fledglings, right?
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: They had a nest.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. The next morning I went out and I saw movement in our raspberry canes. What is happening over there? And I saw two little crows hop out, and it’s like, oh, there’s baby crows. And then apparently what happens is that baby crows, fledglings, they’re called, when they come out of the nest, they can’t fly, and it takes them like a week or two to get enough strength to leave and fly away. So there’s two sets of them, actually. There’s backyard crows and there’s front yard crows, and never the twain shall meet. They’ve got different parents.
But for a while they were, like, sitting on our chairs, or like in our yard and on our lawn chairs, and eventually moved up into a camellia tree, and we’re just waiting. And then the crows would come down and feed them. But it got to a point where, like I said, my dog has to go pee, I have to feed the chickens, I put them away at night. And the first nights of putting the chickens away, the crows did not appreciate it. They were really pissed that I was — at places, like, grab the lid of a trash can and run for the chicken coop or whatever, kind of like, what am I going to do?
So I had to take a broom out, and my wife and I are trying to make sure — like, they’re all cawing super aggressively. They’re not, like, crying and normal cawing, where you can, like, okay, I’m over here. They’re like, this guy here, we’re taking him down, like, scare him away. And so I’d run into the coop. The chicken run has tree cover, so I know they’re probably not going to be able to get down and swoop me, but even still, they’re loud and they’re above me and it’s pretty scary. So I’m running back in. And my kid also, like, the first day he has to catch the school bus, and it’s like, all right, I’m going to open the garage and we’re going to make a run for it. Of course, you open it and the crows, like, alert — they alert all the other crows, like, he’s here.
And also the entire time I’m freaking out, because crows repeatedly have great memory and remember faces and individual humans, and then I’m like, did I just permanently make enemies with birds who live near my house? Are they going to taunt me and swoop me and poop on me and do horrible things to me and my family forever? Anyways, there is a huge — I think it’s a spruce or something — uphill from my house, and a bunch of them would be on lookout from there. But it got to a point where I was able to, like, talk to them, be like, hey, I’m just headed over to the chicken run, I mean no harm. And the crows were on the far side of the yard, and there is an invisible boundary where if I got too close they would issue caws and let me know, like, all right, you don’t need to go over there right now.
And we got to a point where I was able to go to the chicken run and they wouldn’t even alert the other crows, and I would come outside, and we could tell that we sort of understood each other and struck a truce. There’s a level of coexistence. Yeah, except we have a neighbor, and she helped us out with the chickens when we were, you know, not around a little bit, and she had to make her own peace. It was entirely specific to me. It wasn’t like they made peace with everyone in my yard. They were just like, he is trained, he knows what to do, and we trust this guy. But the newbie had to start from scratch, basically, where they were still swooping her and trying to let her know, like, don’t mess with us. [unclear]
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: I feel like there’s going to be colleagues of mine that perhaps listen to this, and they’re going to tell me what a bad ornithologist I am for not actually knowing, you know, the fledgling dates and how long it takes before they fledge the nest and stuff. Because I used to work for Caltrans and Pacific Gas and Electric doing just this, going out and finding nesting birds.
Ross Kenyon: That’s cool.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Like, yeah, like GPS in the nest, then you’d set up a buffer, because there’s a number of regulations that apply, but one of them is the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. And the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which is, I’m pretty sure, overseen federally — [unclear] — there’s also some regulatory oversight in the Department of Fish and Wildlife. And we used to flag, and typically a crow’s nest would be like a 50-foot buffer, would be typically what you have to give them. That’s true for a long time. Like songbirds — for songbirds too, it’s like a 50-foot buffer.
So maybe you just reached the point where you were kind of skirting the buffer zone to get to your chicken coop, and they were like, this is cool, he’s not infringing on our territory. I don’t know. But again, I am not an ornithologist. I used to work with ornithologists, and they would just send me out to do, you know, the menial labor part: observe the nest and take notes and whatnot.
Ross Kenyon: That’s a plausible theory, except once they were up in the camellia tree and were not on the ground anymore or close to the ground, then I was only like 10 or 15 feet away, and even still, they were fine with it. Even though I could run and jump and do like a Superman punch and hit a crow, like, if I wanted to. But they just knew, like, he’s not going to do something horrible like that. The whole thing made me love and respect crows a lot.
I ended up — the first day was terrifying. I was like, are you guys — [unclear] — my dog just trying to pee in the night, doing nothing to no one, and I couldn’t go in my own yard — to being like, oh, this is actually kind of a transcendent, biophilic relationship I have with another species where I feel like we understand each other. I like to think. I see the fledglings out, I think they’re the same ones, and I talk to the crows like a crazy person. I’m just like, hey, crows, how do you guys do? Hello. And some nuts.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Now, I like that. No, it’s not — there’s, you know, I always think I was succeeding as, like, a [unclear] biologist when I worked with these crews. And, you know, at first they’d be really against the idea of any kind of environmental oversight — oh my God, what are these biologists doing here, making our job harder. But then I feel like a month or two into the project, every time, every project I’ve ever worked on, one, two, three of these, like, construction workers or operators would come up to me with their phone and say, hey, I found this picture, you know, look, identify this nest on my property, and, like, what should I do? I really want to share it with my kids, but I don’t want the nest to fail. I want them to get close and look at it.
And they have all these kind of cool questions. And I think there’s just, like, a natural human interest in wild species, and especially when they are kind of, you know, coexisting peacefully with you. And, you know, I don’t think anybody wants to just, like, knock down a robin’s nest on [unclear]. And I think people genuinely have — there’s, like, a human interest in, like, I don’t know, wild species and how they manage their homes.
Ross Kenyon: Because it’s true. Except I remember reading books like Mark Twain and other things where they’re like, well, we were throwing rocks at a cat. You’re like, but — such as Mark Twain, and maybe [unclear] in him. He’s like, yeah, kids goofing around in the woods doing all — we went out and shooting squirrels. Counterpoint. But in general, I think there’s at least an interest in interacting, positive or negative. Surely we can say that safely.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Surely we can.
Ross Kenyon: I don’t know if that’ll make it in, but that’s Ross’s crow story.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: That’s my take. We had a warren of rabbits recently too. Yeah, we see coyotes in Seattle too. There’s, like, tons and tons of rabbits, which are eating my sunflower starts. Come on, guys, kind of deal with you. But yeah, it’s fun to have that nature experience in the city.
Ross Kenyon: I know it changes a lot once you’re out in the countryside. We were like, damn deer keep coming back and eating all my saplings. There’s not a lot of, oh, look at the deer.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: It’s like, okay. No, I think you’re right. There is, like, a city versus country juxtaposition there of how we evaluate and appreciate wildlife.
Ross Kenyon: I had this experience recently where I went to — have you ever been to Cabela’s?
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Yeah, that place.
Ross Kenyon: No. I never thought of REI as being, like, a liberal city slicker institution for the outdoors, but then I realized they don’t sell any guns, they don’t sell any hunting or fishing stuff. And then I went to Cabela’s and I’m like, oh, wow, oh, this is quads, guns, fishing. This is, like, sportsman territory. REI is, like, for people in the city who like to go on hikes. And I always thought that they would be — I never thought that REI had a political orientation in that way until I went to Cabela’s or Bass Pro Shops. And not that you can [unclear].
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Maybe that says something about me, that I haven’t been to Cabela’s or Bass Pro Shops.
Ross Kenyon: It’s funny to me that they wouldn’t try to hit all those marks too, but I guess they just know their customers. I guess they know enough to know that these people don’t want to shop next to each other, for the most part, or they’re trying to interact with the same space in radically different ways. Or, I guess, I don’t know — a lot of people who live in the city who want to go hunting and fishing relative to people in the country, right? I didn’t know that there are hunting and fishing shops here in central Mexico where I live. I haven’t seen any, or they have not been brought to my awareness. Not even fishing — I don’t know. I know gun ownership is pretty constrained in Mexico. I don’t know about — do people fish? That was that earlier thing, is fishing in Mexico —
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Well, I — this is really good.
Ross Kenyon: I always have, like, a mark in shows where you’ll ask, like, the worst question of the show, and you can tell, and then you’re like, okay, this is time to cut the show and go back. And that’s where the ending was: tell me about the fishing culture of central Mexico.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: It might be. That might be.
Ross Kenyon: I think we’ve digressed from the topic at hand.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Was there a topic at hand?
Ross Kenyon: I don’t know. It was pretty experimental and just conversation. But whatever, we told a crow story and we goofed around for 45 minutes. Is that a fine place to end it for now?
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: I think so. Next time we can hang.
Ross Kenyon: Okay, so yeah. Yeah. Next time, come join us, Asa. We miss you.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: Yeah, we miss you. I hope to see you soon.
Ross Kenyon: And yeah, thanks for listening. Thanks for hanging, Siobhan. Thanks for giving us a go.
Siobhan Montoya Lavender: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, that’s not the kind of [unclear]. I don’t know that you believe it, but okay. If you like the show, give us a great rating and review. Tell a friend. Hey, thanks for sticking with us as we try to figure out some new formats, to bring something new to carbon removal. And thanks again for listening. Bye for now.
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.
