Hey folks, it's Quinn. Since we recorded this conversation, we've renamed the podcast. It used to be called Important Non-Portent, which is what you'll hear in the episode, and it's still the name of the company. But now the podcast is called The Most Important Question.
That is, what can I do? It's the question we get the most from all of you, and it turns out it's the question I've really been asking guests for almost 200 episodes now. So here we are, the most important question. Please enjoy this old conversation.
Thanks for listening, and thanks for giving us shit. Welcome to Important Not Important. My name is Quinn Emmett. And my name is Brian Colbert Kennedy.
And this is episode 33. Wow. Brian, oh, it's a good one. Time.
It's time to get on board with the fucking revolution. And I feel like if we haven't been indoctrinated today, if you can't get on board after this one, man. And we're not talking in any way, just any revolution, right? This is the real one, right?
These are the kids that are out there. Right. Otherwise innocent young kids. The next leaders.
16, 17, 18 years old. I mean, I was such an idiot at that point. I mean, more of an idiot than I am now even. But these kids have had enough of our bullshit, right?
They are organizing and marching and fighting back, and they've got fucking flaming outfits, and they come in on chariots. And one is called the mocking jag. I'm talking about the hunger game. That's the hunger games.
That is the hunger games. The point is, it's basically them. It's the fucking hunger games. They're like, whatever the word is, I sacrifice myself for whatever the things she says when she stands up, all these people are doing it.
Because you know what? We fucked it up real bad. Yeah. How many, if you had to count over the course of the conversation, how many fucks would you say that these girls gave and gave in general?
Not a lot of bucks. I think it's close to fucking zero. Yeah. You can count them on your hand if your hand was close tightly like this.
Right. And their hands are closed tightly like fucking fists. Our guests today are Elson and Jitsu and Emily Via. And they are two of the young women behind the This is Zero Hour campaign.
It started with a huge march across the country recently and is becoming so much more than that. Yes. We talked about how they got started, why they're still going and what is worth fighting for. The answer is not you and me.
No, no, no, they've got enough of us. To be clear. And God, are we lucky to have them. They're just saying screw you.
We got this. Yeah, I do feel like over the course of the conversation, conversation became abundantly clear that are what we provided to them. This outlet was we're just like a vessel. Like a vessel for their message.
Like a carcass of like something old and dying that still has one specific use left. And they find that helpful. And that's a specific word about their efforts. Otherwise, we are this just archaic relic of the past.
Just get out of the way. We tried to be, you know, hip, hip and young. Cool. How'd that go?
Not good. I think it's all fair though. I mean, again, we're not the baby boomers who just, I mean, just monsters who still don't care about anything. That's what I mean.
But to them, we're just like accessories to the fucking crime. Get out. I tried to let them know that we were on their side. Right.
That's all. To be clear, there's a whole point of this fucking endeavor. And they were like, that's fine. They're like, that's adorable.
Yeah. Shut up. Please shut up. We have some shit to say.
Yeah. You guys were welcome. What do you guys want to say? What do you got going on today?
Oh, well, I wanted to, I believe maybe it was the last episode or maybe two episodes ago. You were telling some story I went paying attention. And I said, I want to talk about something. Fucking perfect.
And we had a run out of time. And now we have time. My feet are up. I'm listening.
I just realized I left the teaket on the bathroom. Perfect. Well, I just wanted to mention this because I thought you would be all about it because you bring up very often and surprise me with news about wonderful space. Wonderful space.
How do you feel? Oh, really? And I've got some news about wonderful space. Nation has got you.
Can't wait. I have received an email from the Space Nation of Asgardia. What's the email address for that for them? I think it's, oh, I don't think it's one where you can like email them back.
No, but I'm just curious. Like how they, how does the space station, what is their? This one is elections hyphen support at asgardia.space. Got it.
OK. So continue. The subject of this email is become a mayor of Asgardia. Become a mayor.
They are holding their mayoral. All right. So they elected, by the way, questionable because he started the whole fucking thing. They gave that old guy the necklace.
He's in charge. Sure. Igor. He's in charge.
Is this really Igor? Yeah. Igor is for Yale. Oh my god.
He's got the fucking space necklace. An exciting and unique opportunity is upon us. Tell us about it. It is now time for another important step in the journey to becoming the first space nation in human history, the mayoral elections.
And since the founding of Asgardia, residents have been calling for ways to directly support the nation and help build the vision. Have a of the head of our nation, Igor and Ajir Bailey. And that time is now here. So over the next few months, hundreds of people from all over the world will stand to represent their localities and campaign to become the mayor for their cities.
Wait, the localities here on Earth? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Well, no, no, no.
I thought the whole point was you're starting a new nation. Wouldn't you be a mayor of a specific locality of that new nation, not of fuck where Nebraska? No, no, but it starts with people here. We have to have people first.
So the people from their localities here are going to are going to rise up and they're going to say, hey, I want to be a mayor of some city on Asgardia. And then we're. And I just have technical questions I'm confused about. My answer to that is this.
Candidates will raise the flag of Asgardia. Reach out to new residents and make new contacts and encourage people to vote for them. So is this like the Tom Cruise home and away movie, like the land rush or the West where you can just like what are the defined municipalities that you're becoming the mayor of? I don't.
I think maybe you find that out later. So it's a policy scheme. I'm not seeing a lot of breakdown here geographically. What is the call to action in the email?
Listen, there's no there isn't even a space nation yet. It's satellite the size of a toaster, remember. So there's a lot of stuff to do. But let's prep for it now.
But what are they asking you specifically to do with this email? Is it just an announcement or is it a hey, click on this? No, it's a hey, click on this. What happens when you click on it?
It brings you to a wonderful page where is it a PayPal page? It's not PayPal page, not directly. It lists the responsibilities, it lists the benefits. It lists the requirements.
What are the benefits? What are the requirements? What do you want to hear first? This is all too good.
Let's do it. Let's go with the benefits. I feel like that's a nice one. Once you're elected mayor, you take up an official position in the first ever space nation and you're on your own mayoral office for an entire year.
So the year of time, you obviously become directly involved in the growth of Asgardia. You work directly with the head of the nation's administration, which now becomes your part of. The next guy, right. You.
Oh, this one's good. Well, that means it's coming out of your pocket. Yeah, continue. Benefit number six might be my favorite.
Enjoy the challenges of building a brand new nation. Fair. I'm up for that. Uh-huh.
OK. Talking about requirements. Here's some of the requirements. First of all, you obviously have to be willing to run your own office and fulfill the responsibilities of being a mayor.
You must be at least 18 years old. And then obviously, you must pay an initial registration fee of 100 euros. Mm-hmm. And that's about it.
You know. That's it. That's about it. That's the requirements to be a mayor of a space nation.
Yes. Space nation. Oh, I'm so sorry. Yeah.
So it seems pretty cool. Be 18 and pay 100 bucks. Yeah. That's it.
The elections are underway. They end on September 9. So it's a little bit late in the process. I probably won't run.
Oh, no, no. You're running power. But I could have. This is a business expense.
You're running for sure. Pretty cool. So I'll keep you guys updated with what's on there. So here's what we're going to do on the next podcast.
Is you're going to on air? Apply for this. OK. And then we're going to just see how it all goes.
Yeah, I guess I am curious. I need to sign up and vote for the Constitution in order to take part in it. But I definitely already signed up. I don't think I voted on the Constitution.
So it's very exciting, very exciting. OK. Keep us in the loop. We're going to check in.
And this is going to be very exciting. I cannot wait to hear what's going on. Can you imagine me? Can I ask you a question?
Mayor, what do you think of me? I'm a real mayor, does. What off the cuff? What would you say?
Is a day to day job of a mayor? He probably goes to the office. Here she is. Here she is.
Well, I was thinking of me. Here she goes to the office. There's probably somebody who's bringing coffee to this person. You are probably sitting at a computer a lot.
There's a lot of people coming in asking questions, signing these documents. What do you think about this? Some guy called and wants to tell you about his backyard flooding. It's like, there's little things you got to deal with.
So probably a lot of that. I see mostly that stuff. And you got to talk to all your talk to people. You got to be on the front lines.
Like the mayor of Beverly Hills. She's out there every week, fucking with her weird outfits and showing the people that she's wanted them. It's like that. I cannot wait to see how this goes.
We will check in back later with Brian's now official campaign to be a mayor of some completely undefined. You should be a grad. The video they sent out is going to be beautiful. Yeah, that's going to be the show.
OK, I cannot wait to see. We will check in with that and see how it goes. Excited. OK, is that all you got today?
Yeah, that's it. Yeah, and we'll talk about the school star wars thing later. Ooh, I got some cool shit to tell you about Star Wars. OK, but we'll mark that.
Great. All right, thank you. We should probably talk to Elsad. Yep.
Our guest today are Elsad Men, guest 2, and Emily Via from the incredible Zero Hour Campaign. And together, we're going to talk about the fucking revolution. And I don't mean the revolution that all the 35-year-old white people are quote unquote leading. No offense.
It's great. It's helpful. It's where a lot of money's coming from that group includes us. But these women, young women and others like them, are eligible to vote for the first time.
Or maybe not even eligible yet. Or they might be by November. And on the list includes their countries at war in 50 places across the globe. And we only know half of them.
Civil rights are getting squashed out on the rig. Inequality is raging. Environmental justice is, I don't know, non-existent. We've got fires and floods and dogs and cats are living together.
But great news. These folks are doing the opposite of sitting on their asses. They are fighting from day one because they feel like they have to. And they want to.
It's pretty inspiring. So let's hear from them. Elsa, Emily, welcome. Hi.
Thank you for having us. For sure, for sure. We're very happy to have you here, girls. Let's start off easy.
Give us all a little back story. Who are you, girls? And what do you do? OK, I'll start.
So my name's Emily. I'm from Wedia, California. And I'm 18 years old. So I just graduated high school, which is really exciting.
Congratulations. Oh, thank you. So I kind of got started through my high school. We had an environmental club at my school.
And I just decided to join. And I became really involved my junior year with that. And so coming into my senior year, I actually became president of it. And we just did small projects here and there like beach cleanups.
And we had guest speakers. And so one day we had a guest speaker from Citizens' Climate Lobby. So they focused a lot on the carbon-sea and dividend. Yeah, we know them.
So I loved it. And so I ended up attending some of their meetings, other monthly meetings. Through there, yeah, I'm still a part of it. And everything.
And it's great. And I met Van through Citizens' Climate Lobby. And he's an amazing mentor to me. And he's always trying to find projects for me to do that involve youth.
And so one day I was at school and he forwarded me an article of the Rolling Stones. And it featured Jamie in it, who's the founder of Zero Hour. And he just emailed me and he was like, I think this is a great opportunity. And you should definitely try to get in contact with them.
So I just emailed her. And ever since then, I've just been a part of Zero Hour. That's pretty much it. That's awesome.
I love it, man. Just jumping on it. Elsa, what about you? So yeah, I was a year below Emily.
So when I found Zero Hour, I was just scrolling on Facebook. I had just really started to get into community organizing and march for our lives. And so I saw this guy tweet or I guess Facebook post. If any youth would like to hold a Zero Hour rally in our town, I'd love to help out.
And I was like, what the fuck is this? So I went to their account and I just saw their posts and most environmental organizations focused solely on the climate and environmental issues. They never get into issues regarding race, gender, class, or how different systems of oppression and just general systems impact people differently through the lens of climate change. And so that really made me want to get involved with them.
And so I just emailed them and I was like, this is what I'm good at. And if there's any way I could help out, I would love to help out. And I've been with them for a few months now. And we organized them on our Chandy Sea.
And we had dozens of global sister marches. And this is where we're at right now. So it's really exciting. That's so cool, man.
So when you emailed them and you told them what you were good at, what did you say? I focused on with March for our lives, I really did partnerships and communications and public speaking and stuff like that. So I was like, I'm good at speaking. I'm good at communication or just like general, like I guess a resume that's not a resume.
But I was like, this is what I'm good at. And if you guys like whatever need help with help, with like help with any of these, I'm more than willing to help out. And it was weird because now I'm on the volunteer management team and I'll go through like how many people want to volunteer. And I'm like, how the hell was I like chosen out of like, so weird.
And like it was just like a random chance. Like if I didn't pester them, I wouldn't be here. Right. First distance is pretty important.
Yeah, it is. And also maybe just don't ask questions as well. You got the spot, you know. So two things, Brian, what would you what would you email in as your list of strengths and things that you could contribute?
Well, now we have to talk about this. Yeah, right now. Can I put I'm sure that Emily and Elsa had some time to prepare. Nope, you don't have time.
What is your quick list of things that you'd be able to offer? I am good at making people laugh. Your time is sometimes already half up. How many more seconds do I have to now and hire me?
That's great. Good luck. There's this amazing story of I don't know if it's true or not, but Da Vinci sent in his resume to I think it was the Medicis of like things he could do to help the war. And he's like, I can build a flying plane.
I can build catapults. I can draw art. I can make ships disappear in the sea. And they're like, what?
And it's floating around the Internet somewhere. We'll put in the show notes. It's like Da Vinci's resume. And it just makes you feel like an asshole.
You're all right. Fine. All right. I can't build a flying machine.
Yeah, mine's not that good. All right. That's awesome. All right, Brian, you want to get them set up for how we are tone on this thing?
Absolutely. Basically, this is what we like to do on this podcast. Chat with you. And in that conversation, come up with questions that we can ask and answers that we can get from you that are action oriented.
We want everybody who's listening to this to be able to walk away from this episode, knowing that they have a voice and they can take some action to help your cause and help our whole cause. So we'll just set up our conversation for today like that. Quins in and give you some context. We're going to figure out what the hell to do, how to do it, why we want to do it and keep the revolution going.
Yeah, that sounds good. Whatever we can do, even if the answers get the hell out of the way and let us do it, you've screwed everything up. We understand. So listen, ladies, we start with one important question.
If each of you could answer, that would be wonderful. So instead of saying, tell us your life story, we like to ask Emily and Elsa, why are you vital to the survival of the species? That's a hard question. I know.
That's why I ask it. This isn't going to be easy, ladies. I encourage you to be bold, to be honest. Why do you, I guess, maybe since you were little, which was like last year to now or the past year.
Like, what has made you feel like, shit, man, this is what I'm here. This is what I'm here to do, at least right now. I mean, we're, I think we're so vital to the future just because we are the future, not to be mean or anything, but the generation haven't really done anything to help us. And we kind of have to pick up the pieces and the mess that you guys made.
And so I think it's so important that the youth kind of speaks out and tries to fix the problem. So I think that's pretty much the basis of why we're so vital. Yeah, that sounds incredible. That's pretty correct.
It reminds me of the cover of your web page. We are the ones we've been waiting for. Yeah, it's incredible. Which is like awesome and empowering and also like, yeah, we've we've fucked it up.
Yeah, it made me feel terrible. Yeah, it should. Also, what about you? What specifically makes you feel like you're vital to the survival of the species?
Kind of adding on to what Emily said, I mean, you guys kind of did fuck everything up, but sorry. There's a cycle to life. And with every generation and it's youth, they oftentimes push for some kind of social change. And where my generation is right now and it's youth, it's our time to advocate for some kind of change.
And whether that that change be environmental justice, Black Lives Matter, Me Too, any of those issues that are kind of happening all at the same time, we are all vital in pushing society in one way. If you look at our grandparents, our parents, even whatever they did in their youth, it's set up our world for how it is right now. And although our world right now may be a little sucky, granted, it is a little better than it was 56 to years ago. Yeah, and so I think our role as human beings in the society and just as our species, we have to push our world a little more to the better side of what it could be.
And so that's why I think I'm vital and I think youth like me are vital and we always will be because of the cycle in my view, I guess. No, I love it. That's awesome, man. So I guess that is what is the fuel empowering you guys every day.
Could you give us, again, sort of context for all of our listeners here? Because it feels like understandably, there's a different march every weekend. But you know, you guys are such a great specific mission. Could you just give us the overview of two things?
One is like, tell us about this is zero hour, where it came from, and what its original goal was and what its goal is now. And then also sort of each of your roles in that capacity real quick. Well, zero hours started about a year and one month ago, like, yeah, literally a year and one month ago, it started with Jamie, but you know, to Nadia or Nadia, which not to Jamie. And they kind of all just like, it was just a group of teenagers that met like at Prince Danaras and camp and they're like, the world is literally dying and we're inheriting this mess.
And so they like decided to, they just kept brainstorming for a while. And they were like, what's something that we can do? So they decided to do a march on Washington, but that wasn't going to be like our focal point for like the rest of the organization's life. And so they wanted to see how they could set themselves apart.
And an environmental movement that is very white and old. And so they did that by like producing our platform, which I guess can be seen as radical by some means. It's just really addressing the root causes of climate change and how different communities are impacted by environmental policy and climate change differently than other communities are. And how do we assess, how do we take that information and how do we use that in our activism so that we address everybody?
Not just one thing, not so we whitewashed this, not so we lead out indigenous communities who have been left out of these conversations for ages or like any community that's been marginalized. And so they took that focus and I took it to their activism. And I guess that is what zero hours about. It's a movement by the youth, is a movement by students of color, for students of color, by queer people, for queer people.
Wherever your identity lies, there's a place for you at zero hour. And that's how that's the foundation they wanted to set for zero hour. It's not like any other organization that just brings the science to this. There's humanity behind like the science and the data.
And so like that's the origins of it. And that's the focus of that's the focus that they had when they started it. And that's the focus that they're going to continue happening. If that answers your question.
Yeah, no, for sure. And can you talk a little bit just for a minute what that radical seeming platform is specifically? Okay, it may not be radical to like Gen Z, I guess, but it may be radical to Congress or older people that really I guess don't. I guess calling out systems of oppression, understanding how colonialism and imperialism has gotten us to this part of the world where we don't care if there's like a specific amount of natural resources and we don't care if we use them all and there's none left.
And we don't care that the world or the earth of like the case every time we like continuously use them. Like those systems have gotten us to this point and we like we're not calling for the abolition of capitalism, but we're calling to understand like how has capitalism impacted climate change or how has racism impacted environmental policies and people that are dealing with climate change, how are frontline communities being impacted by these issues on a day to day basis and why are they being left out? Which all points to these systems of oppression that exist that they're out of our control and I guess the radical sense and that is addressing the root issue of these instead of maybe calling for a ban on plastic straws, which I guess is good, but plastic straws are only 1% of the plastic in the ocean. Like getting rid of those does nothing other than makes make some people feel good.
Our radicalness is the fact that we go beyond simple, short solutions and we address things that actually create these issues in the first place. And that's such a great fucking answer because book the radical straws thing is like, yeah, it's not great man. We use whatever like half a billion plastic straws a day like turtles are not pleased about the straw fetish we have. But you know, I've been glad to talk with some folks and hear some folks mention that, you know, yes, it's great when Starbucks and McDonald's and whoever like, oh, we're not going to use plastic straws anymore.
But that's a really easy way to make ourselves feel good about the fact that everything else is fucking we're not doing anything to address the root causes. It's just it's a it's great, but it's such a distraction. And it's so awesome to hear you guys are very happy to keep peeling back the layers and turning the mirror on everyone and saying like, you weren't dealing with the causes with the root issues of these things. Awesome.
So Emily, can you talk a little bit about what your specific role is there and then we're going to sort of get into today? Yeah, so when I first emailed Jamie, when I was in CCL, I worked a little bit on the funding side. So when I emailed her, I was like, I'm good at fundraising. I could potentially do that because to put on a march, it does take quite a bit of money.
And so she put me on the fundraising team. And so I don't even know how many months it's been that I've been on the team, but ever since then, we've kind of just been reaching out to donors and foundations asking for money. So that's what I've been doing. But recently, I became head of the social media team, which also, like also, I don't even know how that happened.
But it's been great. And yeah, that's pretty much what I'm doing right now. Brian's ahead of our social media team. And he also has no idea how the hell that happened.
You know, just get put in a place. You do your best job. Your blog calls you sometimes. Yeah, it's great.
It's great. But I do buy you coffee. Like you're such a sweet man. Yeah.
Well, that's awesome. All I can think about is, is it 17 and 18, how I was pretty proud of my life guarding jobs. And I do not want to begin to talk about what was going on about like 17 and 18 years old. No, I don't think you are blowing my minds with your responsibility and leadership.
I'm extremely impressed. Thank you so much for being better than me. All right. So listen, we're going to establish a little more context for today's chat about the revolution.
Just some notes about what's going on. Brian can ask questions. If he gets confused, and else in Emily can jump in and correct us, tell us we're wrong. Hang up.
Who knows? We'll see. Please don't hang up. So there's kind of two generations that are hopefully will have.
And on voting day, November 6th, have the biggest impact both out of opportunity. Well, we need it. Yeah. And and pure volume.
So the first, the older ones is millennials, right? The older folks like the bitch about these guys there right now, I think they're defined as like, twage 22 to 36, something like that 24 36, they've got a dollar and they're projected to finally outnumber baby boomers, which is really the people who screwed this place up as the biggest generation in America by volume, I think in a couple years, like 71 million versus 74 million today. Oh, wow. And the baby boomers, of course, are declining.
Because they're old. And that's what happens. It's nature. It's that but that's nature.
In the middle, we got generation X. Everybody forgets about those guys. There's only about 60 million of them born in the middle and America wasn't having a lot of babies. But millennials are more demographically diverse.
There's more immigrants. There's less attachment to the way things always been done. They are fairly pissed off about the direction this place is going. But then we get to generation Z.
And that is loosely defined as mid 1990s to mid 2000s. So they're an even bigger generation. But obviously, not all of those folks can vote yet. But there is definitely a huge number that have turned 18 since the 2000 election or will by November.
Yeah. And certainly by 2020, if we were still around at that point, I got loose demographics, 54 only 54%, Caucasian, which is amazing. 24% Hispanic, 14% African American, 4% Asian, 4% multi-racial, just so different than any of the previous directions on how they've looked, which is part of what makes these white baby boomers terrified, because they want to hold on to real America, which is an entirely sad situation. In that way, it's like so exciting to think about the future, right?
Like that they're there, there are going to be this many people that are not just fucking old white people that have a say. Yep. It's going to be really different. So you guys grew up with technology.
It's part of your life. Since you were embryos, you have seen a paradigm shift in tech basically every 12 months, which is the good end of the bad, as we've noticed in the past couple of years. The question is whether millennials and more especially this generation Z, whether you guys will turn out to vote young folks traditionally don't turn out to vote as much as older generations. And basically, nobody votes in midterms.
The challenge on November 6 is it is a midterm. And we desperately need all the young people, the new, new, eligible young people to vote. That of course isn't to say that there are one large, modernist people, of course, many are conservative and principled, some probably aren't. Of course, but a good number are progressive and they're fired up.
And as Brian said, 1000 times, we know we fucked up. We know we need you. We know we're depending on you. And we're pretty terrified.
So we need to know to believe that we also need to help however we can to turn your activism into votes. So we're going to get a little more backstory today so that people will help get on board how that activism is manifesting from the inside from you guys and see what we can do to help or the answer as has been the case number time has been get the hell out of the way. So ladies, let's talk about the revolution. When did you guys realize, I guess as as you've talked to a number of people and you've been part of things over the past year, that you really were gonna not just with a march, but you're for the foreseeable future, you're gonna have to take shit into your own hands, like a like a 1980s action hero, you know, that you guys really honestly could not depend on anyone older than you to fix this nightmare.
We've been going on. What is sort of the discussion around that? I don't know when I really realized that it was such a huge issue. I think I think every day it's kind of like you've learned something new and then you realize I shit we have to fix that too.
And so I think especially like the last couple of years, I live in California and the wildfires have been getting so unbelievably bad. And I think that it kind of just opened my eyes to they put this on the news and they put all these disasters about happening all over the world on the news, but then they forget about it in a couple of days and no one's really solving the actual issue. And so I think just over time, I realized no one's actually paying attention to these important issues. And so I did not so great about zero hour we're addressing the problem before it gets any worse.
So that's pretty much how I really got into it. And what seems to be, you know, again, what is the tone when it comes to sort of the older generations when you guys are organizing together? Is it fuck those guys will do it ourselves? Is it fuck those guys?
But if they want to donate money, that'll help. Or, you know, is what is what is welcome versus what is what makes you guys feel like you would be better if you just handle most of these things on your own, which is fair. Yeah, so for example, when I was in CCL, it was mostly them taking over just because I was very outnumbered. I was the only youth there.
So was there our we really had this platform of kids who have a say, I mean, a lot of them are under 18, so they can't vote. And so they don't have a voice in the elections. And so I think it's been great that they've been given this kind of platform where they could talk about what matters to them, even though they can't vote. And so I think it's great when older generations give guidance and advice, but I also think it's important to let youth have this one, just like let us take over because we are the ones that have to live in it.
And they keep making these decisions for us that we don't agree with. And they don't listen to us yet. We're the ones that have to live with the consequences of what they've done. Hey, also, where are you located?
I'm located in Greensboro High Point area of North Carolina, unfortunately, but... We were talking about North Carolina before you got on the line. I think it's beautiful over there. I mean, I guess unless you want H2 but that's my...
Well, good luck getting out of there. Has there any, Emily mentioned the wildfires being something very local, very real in her life that like sort of jump started or kicked off her getting involved? Is there anything like that that happened in your area that made you want to... Yeah, I guess so.
Are you guys... How and if are you applying your efforts locally or regionally? That's actually a good question. That's something I'm still figuring out.
I didn't necessarily join zero hours like a around the clock environmentalist. I was just someone that was like, fuck, climate change is obviously real. Like, I don't... It was just like common sense to me, like this shit is human made here.
It was just common sense to me. I didn't have to read pages and scientific data for me to believe it. I'm still figuring out what I can do in my community, but something that has impacted our community, it might not be climate change, but it is poor environmental policy is like having Duke Energy spill coal ash or oil or some fuck shit into our streams and lakes and have people suffer those consequences and have elected officials not do anything. That's something that really pushed me into like caring about the environment, not necessarily the fact that climate change is here because I think that should be like, that's like, water is wet, like we all fucking know that.
It was just seeing how disasters like poor policy can be for people. And so that pushed me into like caring about the environment. And I've kind of been trying to navigate how I myself can be active in that fight, whether it be going to townhows and holding people accountable or raising like donations for people that can't even drink the water that comes out of their sinks. Like, that's something I'm still trying to figure out.
I think that's something a lot of us are still trying to figure out. So I wonder if there's a version of, and maybe you guys already have this, are there any sort of materials? Because the thing we talk about a lot is people both see the biggest, they see the issues most clearly on their local level, literally like you said, the water in their area or the air in their area. And it's also where they can have the biggest effect, you know, talking to their city council or their mayor or whatever, or running for office.
Have you guys developed any sort of materials or tools that are youth focused that they can use to take that sort of action to go talk to their city council or their high school or to start more local chapters of zero hour, things like that, just to give them a head start and take an action? Yeah, we have. Currently right now we're focusing on Congress because there is like a short congressional break, at least for the house. And so we've been urging people to go to town halls, but we know that can't be our only and major focus because Congress really haven't done anything that's been created.
And so I think our focus now is seeing how we can go into local level. These are discussions we're having within our own organization, just figuring out what spaces that we can fit into and create the most change and like have tangible results. We've been looking out partnering with some organizations and going to speak to school boards or going to speak to city councils or visiting your county commissioner, like what can you do on a local level? So we don't have anything written out produced right now, but those are like evidence that we're looking to go down because most change does happen on the local level.
Hey guys, it's Quinn. If you're listening to this, you obviously like podcasts and you probably like music too. On Spotify, you can listen to all of that in one place for free. You don't even need a premium account on Spotify.
You can follow your favorite podcasts. So you never miss an episode. You can download episodes to listen to offline, wherever you might be, and you can easily share what you're listening to with your friends via Spotify's integrations with social platforms like Instagram. Spotify has a huge catalog of podcasts on every topic, including the one you're listening to right now.
You can just search for important, not important on the Spotify app or browse podcasts in your library tab. Very convenient. And of course, you can follow us. So you never miss an episode of important, not important.
Spotify is the world's leading music streaming service. And now it can be your go to for podcasts too. Yeah. And I wonder if there's something curious about, you know, a lot of things, you know, towns and municipalities and cities are really focused on is getting young people when they leave high school or when they leave, mostly when they leave high school to either they go to college or they come back or they don't go to college, whatever it is, getting young people to live in their city or their town because people always want to leave their town, right?
And sometimes you come back to a great place to live or whatever. But I wonder if there's some sort of pressure that can be put on these places by the young people when they go to school boards or they go to the superintendent's, they go to their city councils to say like, it's not blackmailed, but to be like, look, you know, whether we come back and stay in this area is very dependent on the actions that you're willing to take over the next few years to make this a healthier place to live, knowing that all these things are coming. And I'm curious what kind of fire that could light under these folks as they're weighing the benefits of how they spend their city budgets each year. You know, like, I almost wonder, like, what are the things, like Emily, what are the things that we would have to do to make you want to come back and start your own consulting group or whatever the hell it is from that area and be there and raise a family if you want to family or whatever, you know, to make you go like, oh, this is a place that is taking action, you know, what, what are they behind?
What are they behind on that you feel like you could push them to do again by saying something like, hey, look, I don't speak for everybody, but I can tell you that nobody wants to be part of a place. It's not taking action. What do you have to? I'm curious about that.
So I've spoken multiple times at my city's council meetings. And I think one of the most important things are the things that they listen to the most is when you put pressure on them. So when you tell them we're going to be voting soon or just like you said, if we want to come back to live here. And so I know that when I speak to them, I always make sure to say I'm going to be voting soon.
And if you want my vote, you have to pass legislation that's environmentally friendly. And that's when I really start listening. And I know that's how they pass the bill for some solar energy. I'm not quite sure what it was about, but it had to do with an environmental policy.
So I know that they've been making progress, but there's so much more they could do. I know that they tried cutting down some of the trees. And it's just those trees have been there for so many years. And it makes my city, the city that it is, like that's why it's so beautiful.
And so to cut down all these trees, and just it's horrible. And I think that that's something that they could really do to make people want to come back and live here. And just the pressure on them, honestly, is the biggest thing that they listen to. That's really good to hear that you are actually being heard.
And not that they're, or maybe is that they are afraid of not getting your vote. And that they're not just kind of writing you off because you're young, because that's actually it's actually a huge strength that you guys have is that you are the next generation. Yeah, it just almost seems like, again, it's at this point, like, how do we put the fear of fucking God? It's almost like you need to terrify them to just be up there and be like, hey, look, you know, old white guy who's been on my city council board for 30 fucking years.
Here's the deal. You know, I have ex followers. I'm part of this campaign. I can and do speak for these people locally and our votes count equally as much as anyone else's.
Any baby boomer vote, one vote is one vote. Here's the stakes. Like, these are the table stakes to get our votes because, again, talking with a lot of these cities and towns, without considering all the stuff, all they ever think about is how do we get young people to live and work here. And if there's a threat that those people are actually organized in some way and are not just like deciding it based on what they like or does a town have good food or whatever, they're just like, here's the things you need to do.
Here's the list of things you need to do or we're not coming back or we're leaving. I mean, that would terrify these people. And I just feel like I'm on board at this point, which, with whatever gets you done because like, you said local locals, where we're going to see the most change. It's got to start there.
We're talking about this on the last podcast. It's great when something's, you know, a big issue is broadcast on TV, nationally and everything. But when it's when some big issue is affecting literally the way you live and your friends and your family live in your town, like that's what's going to get you fired up. And then if that keeps happening locally everywhere, then you have a huge group of people, all different localities that want, you know, similar change.
Yeah. So what are there? Are there independent chapters of zero hour? I know this is all really new and you guys have so much on your plates, like for instance, high school, which was hard enough.
You know, what are sort of the local options for kids who aren't involved yet? I work on the partnership team and global outreach. And so I have noticed that we do have a lot of people wanting to start local chapters in the clubs and go for it. It's not something that like we can necessarily like give all our resources to like help start up and do stuff like that.
But if you want to use zero hours, name and messaging and like support our same message and like our general platform, go for it. And do what you see fit for your community. If you want to start a high school club and focus on issues that you see happening in your school that negatively impact the environment, go for it. If you're a student that's concerned about the dirty water that's coming out of your top, like go for it.
Like do whatever you want, like our sister actions, like our sister marches, they weren't all marches, like they're very specific to people and like their needs. Like I think that's something that's really cool about zero hour. Like we don't want to speak for one community or we don't want to force the same solution for one. So we have dozens of solutions like whatever you see fit for your people do it and their hour would love to help.
I love that because you are correct. I mean, I'm sure there's some repeatable tools that can be used or platforms, but it is really different in every locality in region, whether you're on the coast or you're not, or whether you face fires or you don't or whether your town already has some solar or has a lot or has none or it has wind or it doesn't have the potential. It's like there's a million different variables, but putting these things down as table stakes and letting them know that you are going to take action one way or another feels like a hell of a way to get things going here. So I'm curious what you guys thoughts on are all these sort of lawsuits that are out there of the youth that are suing the companies or they're suing their states or their cities.
A lot of them are begun to get tossed out, not just the ones from the youth when the cities are suing the fossil fuel companies. There's one tossed out by judge, I think, in Washington state yesterday. They're not working as well as anyone hoped. Do you guys have any thoughts?
Do you work with any of those or have talked to anybody on those things? Well, I know Jamie, right? Also, Jamie was on the- Yeah, Jamie, she's on that. Yeah.
She was on the- And you first is Guff, and I think that's one that she touched on. Yeah. Yeah. She was on the lawsuit for Washington, right?
Emily? Yeah. Yeah. But I know that that lawsuit was tossed out.
And I just, it's really aggravating. I know she tweeted something recently where that same, I think it was, was it the Senator? I don't know who it was, but someone from Washington was talking about how climate change is a huge issue, yet they worked so vigorously to make sure that that lawsuit didn't pass. And so it's really aggravating to hear so many politicians say, yes, it's an issue and it's so important that we fix it, yet they do everything in their power to make sure that no change happens.
And I think that it's really disheartening to see all these lawsuits just be thrown out the window because it's a game changer to have these pass. And so it sucks really. Yeah. I'm sure you run into that feeling quite a bit is it sucks.
For you guys, I mean, obviously that is a nightmare situation. And hopefully we can all figure out a different, I guess, route to take a direction to go with that. Or just get better people in office. That would be good.
What are the biggest obstacles that you ladies run into while you're fighting for your lives? I have to say, people don't care. Like when people talk about, oh, this country is so divided. Oh, people are so political or like, no, like there's the amount of people that are actually political or actually to give a shit about something is so small compared to the amount of people that have apathy towards everything.
It's so aggravating. Like you'll literally be fighting for your lives, like to live or to walk out peacefully or not to be harassed or discriminated or to have clean air to breathe in. And people literally just don't give a shit until it impacts them. And then by the time it impacts them, it's too late.
And that's the biggest roadblock in my opinion. I can do, I can give me a senator that doesn't give a shit and it's like crappy and has a shitty voting record. So you can give me a bunch of crappy people that will do anything in their power to oppose my rights. But like, those people, like they're so powerful because they give a shit like they're actually advocating for what they believe in and unfortunately what they believe in.
In my opinion, it's trash, but they're doing something about it. And there's just such a huge chunk of the population that doesn't care about anything that you can't get anything done. Like, it's not so frustrating. Yeah, it's really frustrating because I hear so many people, especially like when I was in high school, so many people took our environmental science class and we had an amazing teacher who always talked about climate change.
And there were so many kids that were always like, oh my god, the world's going to shit. Like, it's just horrible. But then I'm saying like, oh, I'm President of our club eco, you should come to our meetings. You should do all of this because it's an important issue that we're trying to fight.
And then no one shows up. And just to hear everyone complain, but not take action as I think the most aggravating thing in the world because you know, we need people backing us up. And if there's no one backing us up, then our voice isn't as loud as it could be. And you know, one of the things we try to focus on, someone just mentioned, there's a rolling stone article that's coming out that's basically like, this is the end of humanity.
And it's like, oh, okay, you know, it's not great. But what's interesting is, is, you know, the psychology of, and there's been plenty of research into this is if you basically just say like, everything is fucked, we're fucked, no one's going to really do anything a lot of the time. Because there's no one really sees in that statement and assessment, an opportunity for progress. But if you say like, things aren't great.
But here's the wins we're having. And this is where we can still have a big impact if we do X and Y, that is more helpful and more constructive. So we do try to point folks in that direction, because, you know, like you said, for whatever reason, when people are just like, it's really bad. And then they won't even show up to a meeting.
That's not really helpful. So that's why we try to point towards action. Do you guys find any apathetic folks from, I mean, I guess we're just saying there's people in even your class. So when people, you know, when everybody who's 40 in white is like, Oh, don't worry, generation Z is going to save us again.
It's not everybody. You guys, not everyone is signed up for zero hour. How do you talk to the folks in your own generation to try to get them on board? How is that different from yelling at a congressman?
Yeah, so the way I always approached it was I was like, it's so easy to get involved. I mean, for me, the way that I started out was once a month I went to a CCL meeting. And it's just like three hours of your day that could make a change. And I went recently to go lobby for Ian Calderon to try to get him to sign on to the SB 100 bill in California.
And who's he? Ian Calderon. He's an assembly member. Okay.
It was just it was a 30 minute like meeting. And so there's so many small actions that you can take. And I think that it's kind of overwhelming. Sometimes, at least for me, when I started out, I felt like I watched all these documentaries and we'd all these articles and I felt like I just had to change the world.