Cramming for the Apocalypse Podcast

Welcome to the Charm of the Wilderness podcast! I’m thrilled to release our inaugural episode featuring not only an incredible educator, but one of my oldest and best friends, Allison Depuy. If you’re listening to this on the Cramming for the Apocalypse feed, make sure to Subscribe to this podcast at Charm of the Wilderness on Substack or you can find it wherever you get your podcasts.In this episode, we talk about innovative ways to bring the outdoors to the classroom and how we can inspire our kids to be engaged in nature. Additionally, Alli helps me introduce the podcast and what Charm of the Wilderness is all about.About AlliAlli DePuy is the CEO of Inspired Classroom, is an accomplished educator, curriculum designer, and EdTech innovator with 25 years of experience. Through Inspired Classroom, she collaborates across the public and private sectors to design and implement project-based education experiences, innovative technologies, and mentorship programs that engage learners of all ages. Her work is widely recognized across Montana and supported by educators, organizations, the Office of Public Instruction, the Office of the Governor, and other state leaders.Connect with us about Curio CampIn this episode, Alli and I discussed a project that we’re working on, an interactive card deck for kids to be inspired and excited about nature. These decks include prompts for games, meditations, fun facts, and other ways to engage kids in the places they’re visiting. Curio Camp is in the Beta stages and we are looking for families of elementary-age kids traveling to state or national parks this summer to help test out the product!If this describes you, COMPLETE THIS FORM and we will be in touch! to Cramming for the Apocalypse is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Cramming for the Apocalypse is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe

Did you know this Thursday, October 16th is The Great ShakeOut? It’s a day to focus on getting ready for an earthquake. However, we at “Cramming” are using it as a day to get ready for all disasters. So we’re coming at you with a special bonus episode to introduce you to another great tool out there.But first, don’t forget that also on Thursday, we are hosting a virtual workshop called “Get Your Go Bag Together” in partnership with MakeWith PDX. This virtual workshop is on Thursday, October 16th from 5-7pm Pacific Time. We have sliding scale pricing AND we’re offering a special opportunity to purchase some go-bag essentials.REGISTER HERENow, onto my discussion with Jennifer Heller.“Here Comes the Apocalypse”In this conversation, I talk with designer and fellow “liberal prepper,” Jennifer Heller about a really great resource she created for regular people to not feel super overwhelmed by preparedness. You can learn about Jennifer in this episode. In the meantime, check out here website HERE AT www.herecomestheapocalypse.com. There you can get her really exceptional (and dare I say fun?!) Disaster Playbook.Additionally, we spoke about a story I wrote about the North Coast Emergency Food System Partnership for Civil Eats—you can find that story here.Thank you for listening!Cramming for the Apocalypse is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe

Y’all, it’s our last episode of Season 2! My how time flies! Before I get into it, a respondent to the survey I sent out the last few weeks mentioned that it would be nice to have the toolkit in one space. Well, guess what, you’re in luck! Last year, we compiled the full toolkit in this handy-dandy workbook where all of this can be found in one place. It’s helpful to reference the original posts, but this will help you walk through each step of the process. I’ll note that I’ve intended to do some updating and editing of this workbook, but haven’t had the time or capacity to do it. I’ll let you know if it gets a refresh.In this week’s episode we talk about how to have conversations about preparedness and how essential that is for community preparedness.You can find our original post about this topic here:In the meantime if you want to review any of our past episodes, you can just navigate to the “Resources and Toolkits” menu at the top of the main page.This has been a true pleasure recording this series with Brekke. As I noted in the episode, we really are going to try to record some bonus episodes. But as we head into summer, we know that extra time is not going to be afforded to us moms so nothing is planned as of yet. You can stay tuned here on the Substack for updates on those episodes.In the meantime, let us know what other topics you want to hear about at [email protected] for being along on this ride with us!Happy prepping!Cramming for the Apocalypse is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe

If you haven’t yet taken the survey about virtual classes we’re hoping to offer in the fall, there’s still time to complete it!In our penultimate episode of Season 2, we talk about the topic that I write about all the time in my newsletter: community preparedness. This is a much less tangible element of preparedness and isn’t one you’re going to accomplish over as weekend or even a few weeks. It’s a long-term process of relationship-building. Hopefully this conversation that Brekke and I had helps to give you some inspiration and motivation to help you begin to branch out with neighborhood preparedness.Here is the written version of this topic from last year to reference back to it.Additionally, we mentioned a few FEMA resources that, as of this writing, are still on the FEMA website, but as with everything on federal websites right now, there’s no telling what will be removed and when. So here are a few downloaded PDFs that might be helpful:* Community Resilience: Using a Religious Literacy Primer to Improve Engagement with Faith Communities | FEMA* National Disaster Recovery Framework | FEMA* Disaster Resource Identification | FEMAAnd last, Brekke mentioned the idea of having a book club serve as the convening activity for you and your neighbors. Here are some great books to get your started:* A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit* Generation Dread by Britt Wray* The Great Displacement by Jake Bittle* The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton* Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson* The Future by Naomi Alderman* Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony DoerrAlso, I write the occasional book review in my newsletter, so if you want some other recommendations or want to check back, you can just go to the “Book Club” tab from the main page.Cramming for the Apocalypse is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe

Before we launch into the podcast, I wanted to let you know that I’m currently working with MakeWith Hardware & Learning Center here in Portland to develop VIRTUAL workshops that help guide you through aspects of preparedness. If you are interested in taking such a class, we’d love for you to take a very quick survey to get a sense of the topics you’re interested in and some other aspects of what we could offer. Also, answering the survey just helps us gauge whether there’s enough interest to offer it, so just taking the survey is info in and of itself.If there’s ample interest, then we foresee launching these sessions next Fall 2025, so stay tuned!This week is the one many of you who have tuned in because of the LA fires have been waiting for: planning for evacuation. And yes, this has the list for what to put in your Go Bag which you can also find in the original post from last year.Also, we had a fun riff on what might go into a $5 Go-Bag, so if you’re reading this and want to partake, we’d LOVE to hear what you were able to put in your $5 Go-Bag (hint: grocery bag + dollar store finds would probably do the trick).Cramming for the Apocalypse is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe

This week is a fun one because we’re talking all about your poop! But also we’re talking about how not to get sick if your sewer system goes down. Those of us living in higher income countries can take our functioning toilets for granted, but it should not be taken lightly when we’re preparing for an emergency.In fact, in this paper published in the Journal of Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America, Drs. Stephen Y. Liang and Nicole Messenger discuss the emergence of infectious diseases after hydrologic disasters including hurricanes, tsunamis, storm surges, excessive rainfall, floods, and even drought. They note that 40% of deaths after a natural disaster, specifically for people who are displaced, are due to diarrheal illnesses. This shows how important it is to prepare for sanitation for your own family.So now you know how important it is to manage your poop and all the other germs that go along with living in this world.You can read our original post, complete with a list of what you should have in your toilet kit and general hygiene kit:Now enjoy listening to our discussion about…poop.Thanks for reading Cramming for the Apocalypse! This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe

This week is the very unsexy conversation about finances and documents. The conversation also took a very dystopian turn when we discussed all that the current Administration is doing to harass and deport people who look to them like an immigrant and what Congress is doing to limit voting rights. What a world we live in.Nonetheless, here is the original post which includes a full list of the documents we tick off in the episode:Additionally, I mentioned 1Password as the place where I store my document information. It’s also where I store all my passwords and I love it. But as Brekke noted, she’s trying to move away from storing important docs in the cloud. So it’s up to you. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe

You know that food you stocked up for after Episode 3? Well now we have tips on how to prepare how to cook said food.This week we talk about the various ways to illuminate, heat, cool your home and fuel your cooking implements when the grid goes down, which is becoming a much more common prospect than it once was. We also include some bonus action step recommendations not just on the preparedness front, but to advocate for safe, resilient grid systems that are currently very vulnerable to climate disaster.And as promised in the episode, here are some links to some of the product suggestions we gave:* Solar-charging home generator* EcoZoom portable wood burning stove* Mr. Heater portable Buddy Heater* Battery-powered fansLast, for a text-based version of this, check out the original post here:Cramming for the Apocalypse is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe

We’re back after a couple week Spring Break! This time we’re talking about first aid and medication for preparedness.But first, since we’re talking about health and healthcare, a couple disclaimers.Disclaimer One: Brekke Wagoner and I are NOT medical professionals. None of the information within should be considered medical advice. If you have any questions that are specific to you and your health, you should connect with your healthcare provider who is qualified to give you medical advice.Disclaimer Two: We talk about vaccinations and the benefit and importance of vaccinations. We believe in science and we believe in vaccinations and this is not up for debate. Disclaimers behind us, here are the links we mention in the episode!* Here’s our original post with allll the lists that we mentioned.* Here is a study about the efficacy of OTC drugs often in a first aid kit that found that they’re efficacious for up to 15 years. In the podcast we mentioned that the U.S. military’s study on the same thing found that their medications were efficacious for even longer. We are still tracking that down, but 15 years is pretty damn good.* Here are some online resources for medications that are often prescriptions. NOTE: We are NOT endorsing any of these as Brekke and I haven’t actually used them ourselves, but they are options that are out there. If you’re familiar with or have used these companies, please report back.* Mark Cuban CostPlus Drug Company* JASE Medical* Contingency Medical* Here are the books we mentioned:* The Survival Medicine Handbook* Where There Is No Dentist by Murray Dickson* Where There Is No Doctor * US Army First Aid Manual (free online)* Your action steps:* Build your General First Aid Kit * Talk to your doctor about acquiring an additional month’s supply of prescription medications including antibiotics.* Build your IFAK/Trauma Kit. * Make sure you’re up-to-date on your vaccines. * Decide which skills you need to build and take steps to gain those skills by signing up for classes. And you can find all the other recommendations including books and such at our original post.Cramming for the Apocalypse is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe

Food storage is, hands down, the thing most people ask me about with preparedness. So without further ado, here is your full episode about food prep.Also, check out the Prep Series post on food storage that is complete with a one-week dinner menu and tips and images of what Brekke and I use for food storage in our own homes.Additionally, we won’t be releasing an episode next week because it will be Spring Break here in Portland and will not get to editing or recording. But we’ll be back in two weeks to discuss first aid and medicine.And as always, I encourage any of you who are enjoying this podcast to upgrade to paid. Brekke and I both donate our time to this because it’s a labor of love and we really want people to be ready for disaster, but it’s an added bonus if we can pay ourselves :). If upgrading isn’t in the cards, you can share this episode and this series with others.Cramming for the Apocalypse is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe

Water is the most important thing to think about for preparedness. We can live weeks without food, but no more than three days without clean water. In this episode, we talk about how much water to stock up on is ideal, storage options, treatment options, and sneaky water sources in a pinch.We discuss all of this in this week’s podcast. You can also find all the content in our toolkit post from last year. As always, our action steps for this week include:* Calculate how much water your household will need for 7-10 days. * Decide where to store your water. * Decide what storage method you will use.Bonus action steps include completing your water storage checklist that’s within the workbook we created and stocking up on water purification tools.As always, keep us posted on your prepping and let us know if you have any questions at [email protected] for the Apocalypse is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe

Given that we’re in what feels like “unprecedented times” (to borrow a way-too-overused phrase), we wanted to address it. What we are experiencing is, to be clear, a coup that is happening in plain site and being allowed to happen by some pretty cowardly people who do have the power to stop it (ahem, Congress). While on the surface it might not feel like this coup is related to preparedness, it is. We break it down in this episode as to why this moment should compel us to prepare for disasters—both natural and manufactured (e.g., huge price increase on imported goods thanks to tariffs and a loss of USDA subsidies and grants for U.S.-based farmers who grow our food).A note: we recorded this episode in early February, just over two weeks into this current shitshow of a White House Administration, so a lot has transpired since then. Most of it has gotten worse, frankly. There have been a few wins, there have been some packed town halls calling out their Congresspeople (and yes even in Republican districts), and there have been calls for economic boycotts (which could go farther). But also National Park Rangers and National Forest Service staff have been fired and there have been even more widespread firings across the entire government. So just wanted to place you in the moment we were in when we had this discussion. But don’t fear, it’s not all doom and gloom, we end on a high note which is necessary during any talk of the coup.As always, let us know if you have questions you’d like us to address in the podcast. You can write us at [email protected] or comment below. And we encourage you to upgrade to paid. I’d love to pay Brekke for her time recording these episodes.Next week, we’ll get back to the basics of preparedness talking about water.Happy prepping!Cramming for the Apocalypse is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe

This week’s episode is short and sweet and here for you to start wrapping your mind around what it means to be prepared. This is week’s episode is all based on Week 1 of our preparedness series.If you want to refer back to anything that we talked about, you can find the resources there!Don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good.Additionally, each week, we’ll offer you specific action items to take that week. This week it’s more about thinking about preparedness. Here’s the list of action items we noted (and we make it even easier with our printable workbook!).* Brainstorm the types of disasters that might be most common in your area? Prompts on page 2 of the workbook* Think through what utilities might be affected in a disaster? Prompts on page 2 of workbook* Brainstorm your essentials vs. wants. Prompts on page 3 of workbook* Think about what supply lines are essential for your health and safety. Prompts on page 4 of workbook* Start thinking a little bit about an evacuation plan. Prompts on page 4 of workbookAs always, let us know if you have questions you’d like us to address in the podcast. You can write us at [email protected] or comment below.Thanks for reading Cramming for the Apocalypse! This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe

We’re so excited to announce that we are back for a second season! This season will be a little different from the first one in that it will all be about practical preparedness.We will be going through the Preparedness Series that Brekke Wagoner and I put together last year and bringing the toolkit to you in audio from.Each episode will cover topics from water and food storage to evacuation plans. And we’re making each of the toolkit series posts free and open to the public so that you can reference them after you’ve listened to that episode.In this kick off episode, we introduce you to this series as well as to give you a sense of who we are and why we’re trying to get progressives to prepare for disaster. Feel a little icky about the term “prepper”? We get it. This episode goes into the history of how “prepping” has been associated with right wing extremism and why we think preparedness is a social responsibility. We’ll also talk about what to expect from this season.In each episode we will offer some practical action steps to take and will include those in the show notes. Given this one is really setting the context, there are no action steps today.Can’t wait to have you along for the ride. And in the meantime, consider upgrading to paid as this allows me to pay Brekke for her time and effort to this project.In the meantime, Happy Prepping!Cramming for the Apocalypse is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe

This is a fun episode where Helena Hjort one of the co-founders and co-owners of Swedish adventure travel company, Do The North, talks with me not just about the trip I took with them last year, but about Swedish and American culture. It was a fun conversation that moved from describing the incredible beauty of the St. Anna Archipelago on the Southeastern Coast of Sweden to an existential discussion about the differences between Swedish and American culture. Also Helena is just the best.You can learn more about Helena and the trips they do at Do The North at www.dothenorth.com and you can follow them on Instagram @dothenorth. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe

In honor of Earth Day (which is next Monday, April 22nd), I’m publishing this conversation I had with Leonard Barrett, co-president of the climate justice organization, Families for Climate, here in Oregon. I’ve been working with Leonard and FFC for the past year or so on their communications and it has been an amazing source of inspiration. Learn about Families for Climate at www.familiesforclimate.org and on Instagram at @familiesforclimate (Fun note: I run this account so just another way I have my hands in climate justice). And as promised in the episode, here are some additional resources we mentioned in our discussion:Other Regional Parent-Led Climate Action Orgs:* Climate Action Families in Seattle * Families for a Livable Climate in Montana * Climate Families NYC* For Our Kids national org in Canada* Moms Clean Air Force national org in the U.S.If you don’t have a local parent-led climate action group near year, you should start one! Contact [email protected] to ask for advice and ideas or contact them through their online form here.Oregon Legislative Session UpdatesBecause of lot of Leonard’s work with FFC is focused on legislative advocacy. We talked a bit about last year’s and this year’s legislative sessions. Last year’s was truly historic. Here are the updates we wrote in the FFC newsletter and blog about those sessions:* 2023 Oregon Legislative Session and passage of the historic Climate Resilience Packages* 2024 Oregon Legislative Session WinsCredits* Cramming for the Apocalypse artwork by Amanda Burnham* Music by DayFoxCramming for the Apocalypse is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe

On this week’s episode I bring you my liberal prepper pal, Brekke Wagoner. She’s the creator and host of the Sustainable Prepping YouTube Channel where she aims to educate through a holistic approach to emergency preparedness. She provides tips and resources in an action-oriented, forward-focused community to empower working women and their families to face any crisis with calm and confidence.I got to know Brekke over the last couple years on this journey and I interviewed her for this story I wrote for The Progressive last summer about progressive preppers and prepping. I’m super excited to bring her on to help break down some of the preconceptions about preparedness and also to give you tips to prepare.Learn more about Brekke at www.sustainableprepping.com and follow her at @sustainable_prepping on Instagram.Subscribe to Get Our Preparedness GuideI’m also super excited to partner with Brekke on a step-by-step preparedness toolkit. For the next 10 weeks (starting Friday, April 5th), we will be publishing a weekly guide on specific steps to take for disaster preparedness. Along with the toolkit, you’ll receive a workbook that helps you track what you need and take notes along the way, a pared-down “to do list,” and a forum for others in this community to connect with and commiserate or ask questions of on this journey.This toolkit is available to all paid subscribers. For the early birds out there, I have this limited-time offer of 20% off a paid subscription for your first year if you want to jump on board. ResourcesIn addition to the toolkit, Brekke offered some great resource recommendations in the episode. * FEMA Planning Guides (great for beginners)* City Prepping — for intermediate-level preparedness * Survive and Thrive: How to Prepare for Any Disaster Without Ammo, Camo, or Eating Your Neighbor by Bill Fulton and Jeanne Devon (and check out Brekke’s review here)* Brekke’s Sustainable Prepping YouTube Channel, of course! A place to start is here Prepper 101 series — check out this one on waterCredits* Cramming for the Apocalypse artwork by Amanda Burnham* Music by DayFoxCramming for the Apocalypse is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe

In the Fall of 2022, I participated in the Wilderness Awareness School’s Wild Women’s Retreat. It was two days filled with learning skills from fire-making and plant medicine to building an awareness in the outdoors and nature play. While the entire weekend was inspirational and beautiful, and above all, super fun, one of the sessions that stuck with me most was the fire-making class. So much so that I wrote a whole story about it a few months after the fact. I was also so inspired by our teacher, Marina Rivera, who brought beauty, grace, and a spiritualness to the act of fire-making. Not to mention she taught us how to chop wood and that was a lesson in feeling like a true badass.Because of that session, I’m so happy to bring Marina on to the podcast this week.Marina Rivera is from Ciudad Obregón Sonora, a little city in el Valle del Yaqui. Known for its agricultural lands and the best tacos and hotdogs in the world. She spent her teen years attending several different rite of passage programs and apprenticing under two indigenous elders who stoked and tended her budding curiosity for nature connection. As an adult she dedicated her time to studying in several different schools learning survival, primitive skills, ethnobotany, and other complimentary skills. For the last five years she worked as a wilderness skills instructor teaching these skills and guiding kids, teens, and adults in rite of passage experiences and expeditions. More than anything she loves her dogs, a good BBQ, sitting by a fire, and throwing sharp objects at stumps.Marina is currently living in Western Montana and is working towards launching her own company teaching wilderness, bushcraft, and fire-making skills. You can follow Marina and her adventures on Instagram @apocalypseflower. Resources from the episode:* Earthwalk Northwest* Tom Brown Jr.’s Tracker School * Wilderness Awareness SchoolAnd for those interested in knowing how a bow drill works, here’s a short video that shows the basics:Credits:* Cramming for the Apocalypse artwork by Amanda Burnham* Music by DayFoxCramming for the Apocalypse is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe

Exciting podcast news! The podcast is now monthly. And because of that news, I’ll be publishing it in addition to weekly newsletter posts. So you’ll receive this podcast in your inbox the first Friday of each month in addition to weekly newsletter stories on Tuesdays. What’s even better—all of this is offered to all subscribers for free. Hooray for more content!I’m so excited to share this month’s podcast about foraging, specifically mushroom foraging with Leah Carlson. Leah is the marketing and communications director at Wilderness Awareness School in Duvall, WA and more importantly, she’s an avid mushroom forager. I met her at a Wild Women’s Retreat with WAS in 2022. She was there as a staff-participant and I was there for this project. She and I hit it off immediately and had a lot of fun getting to know each other during those two days. Right off the bat, I learned that Leah was an avid mushroom forager. As we walked around WAS’s forested land, she’d stop every once in awhile and point out the mushrooms. None of these were edible mushrooms and so I saw that there was an interest far beyond what kind of mushrooms served us humans. And that’s why I really wanted to bring Leah onto the podcast.You can follow Leah and her mushroom hunting adventures on Instagram @northwestwildcrafting. In the episode we spoke about the mushroom that Leah discovered and named, the Protubera Cerebrum. She discovered this unique and frankly, creepy, mushroom in the forest behind her house and it turns out she discovered a completely new and undiscovered species of mushroom. You’ll have to listen to the episode to learn about how that went down, but here are some photos of that super cool new mushroom.Resources from our discussion:* The Mushroom Identification Kit that Leah created for Wilderness Awareness School* All That the Rain Promises and More by David Arora — This is a Pacific Northwest foraging guide that Leah and I talked about with the guy wearing a tuxedo holding a trumpet and a giant chanterelle. PNWers will see this guide everywhere for local mushrooms.* If you’re not in the Pacific Northwest, look up guides that are specific to your region as mushroom varieties vary from region to region. And when you get deeper still into mushrooms, seek out the local mushroom Facebook groups.* Leah mentioned “dichotomous mushroom guides” that are a choose-your-own-adventure kind of guide which is much easier than just paging through an entire book to find a matching photo. Here’s an example from the Mycological Society of Toronto.* iNaturalist is also an excellent app for mushroom identification and one way to get some confirmation that your mushroom won’t poison you.DISCLAIMER: These resources do not serve as an end-all-be-all mushroom foraging guide. I am not an expert. There are a lot of lookalike mushrooms that seem like they’re the delicious edible kind, but I am not an expert and it takes a lot of time and observation to become adept at foraging for the right mushrooms. So if you’re new to mushroom foraging, when are going out to eat those mushrooms you found, you should get confirmation from at least 3 sources (e.g., iNaturalist, a Facebook group, and a knowledgeable mushroom foraging friend) before you eat that mushroom.Credits:* Cramming for the Apocalypse artwork by Amanda Burnham* Music by DayFoxCramming for the Apocalypse is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe

Awhile back I came across a class by AASHE (The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education) that was uncannily up my alley. It was called Climate Anxiety to Action: Tools to Build a Radical Imagination and it was taught by Kat Davis. It turned out that Kat Davis happened to be the Climate Justice Advisor for the very school district my son goes to school in, Portland Public Schools. So of course I connected and we grabbed coffee. And later, Kat and I sat down to have this conversation so that you all can hear more about her approach to climate education and specifically about radical imagination. You can follow Kat’s Envision Our Futures project on Instagram.Resources from the episode:* Yale Program on Climate Communication* Climate Mental Health Network* The Golden Hour by Anya Kamenetz * Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown* A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety by Sarah Jaquette Ray* All We Can Save ed. by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson* This Change Everything: Capitalism vs. Climate Change by Naomi Klein* Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall KimmererCredits:* Cramming for the Apocalypse artwork by Amanda Burnham* Music by DayFox TranscriptElizabeth: Hi everybody. Thank you for listening to this podcast slash audio version of the cramming for apocalypse newsletter. And with me today, I have Kat Davis, who is the advisor for climate justice at Portland Public Schools.And I'm really excited to have you. Thanks for coming, Kat.Kat: Thanks for having me.Elizabeth: Let's just start by having you tell us a little bit about yourself. What's your role and what's your journey to get to where you are now? Absolutely. So as you mentioned, I'm the advisor for climate justice with Portland Public Schools.And my role is to oversee the implementation of our climate crisis response, climate justice and sustainable practices policy, which was 2022. It's a [00:01:00] really widespread overreaching policy that encompasses a commitment to greenhouse gas reduction. Reducing our energy, water, waste, transportation costs and emissions, but also has a real intentional focus on resilience for our community or the mental health and wellness of our students, as well as student and staff engagement and empowerment in addition to climate literacy.So it's a the climate crisis response policy is a wide reaching policy that encompasses pretty much every department at Portland public schools and really takes the. Opportunity to collaborate with our students and our teachers and our staff and our community to make sure that this comes into the full realization, and I started in June of 2022 so I got to start after this policy had already been adopted and was, you know, people were really excited to see some momentum move forward with this, so I got to just kind of dive right into it and, you know, take it from there and start listening to our [00:02:00] community and our staff to really see what this was going to look like on the ground.That's awesome. And what have you seen in the last year? Like what is the, have you seen progress? Have you seen challenges?Kat: Absolutely. So. It's interesting because Portland Public Schools has had a commitment to climate action for decades. So this policy didn't necessarily start climate action at PPS. Rather, it created a framework and a structure to really elevate and build intentionality and systemic, you know, a systemic commitment to integrating climate action and climate justice into everything that we do. So the interesting part about it has been, you know, I spent the first year really listening and Digging into the history of different strands of work at PPS really starting to understand what was already working really well, what were some projects that were maybe passion projects of the past that didn't have the sustainable structure or funding source to keep [00:03:00] them going.And then what are the gaps that we need to fill to make sure that this policy is really moving forward at the pace that matches the urgency of the issues at hand. So there is a lot of opportunity in seeing what's already going well, but then there's also a lot of challenges of trying to track down who does what .I mean, it's a big organization. We've got 81 schools, 45, 000 students. So it's a, it's a beast to see and try and understand what all the different pathways are for action. And then at the same time, we're dealing with real emergent challenges of the climate crisis is already happening. So our students are feeling the weight of that.Our buildings are struggling with the heat and the cold because our infrastructure is on average a hundred years old and it was a hundred conditioning and a lot of buildings and our teachers and our students and our staff are all kind of grappling with these challenges. In the day to day as we're also trying to mitigate our further impact on climate change, so it's definitely a lot of trying to do the mitigation [00:04:00] and adaptation work at the same time, which is difficult when we're trying to prioritize, but also gives us a lot of opportunity when we're thinking about how we can move forward to not only reduce our impact on climate change, but. Also prepare for a world that is already experiencing these challenges.Elizabeth: Yeah, gosh, just thinking of all the different types of needs under this, I can't imagine how many different hats you have to wear. You have facilities to education, those are two different jobs. I'm curious about how you manage that.Kat: Yeah, it's interesting because they are very different fields of work. But at the end of the day, you know, at Portland public schools, all of our staff are considered educators, right? So when we're looking at building a new building I heard this at a conference recently, which I thought was fantastic, which is that if you're, you know, just did a really great solar project at a elementary school and you talk to a second grader and they can't tell you the cool solar project you just did, and you haven't done enough.As part of your facilities building plan. And so if we can really look at our infrastructure and our [00:05:00] facilities as real living, learning lab opportunities for our students, then we can really start to understand how intimately our facilities and our curriculum can be connected into like this really holistic experience of what showing students what it can look like to have a future of climate solutions, right. On the ground of like where they go to school, which I think is the ultimate goal.Elizabeth: That's so cool. And this is not a common position in public schools right?Kat: Yeah, it's a, it's kind of a unicorn position right now. But I think in terms of a lot of public schools will have a sustainability director or person in the facilities office, you know, so it'll, or they'll, or they might have somebody in the curriculum side of the house that's focusing Climate change into the curriculum that you often see that that more of like a state level.And my position is really unique because I actually report to the chief of staff. And so it's considered, you know, I'm reporting to leadership and it's a [00:06:00] centralized position where I'm placed strategically to be advising our leadership team on how to move our organization forward together on how to not only meet our organization forward together. Graduate portrait goals, but also meeting those goals through the lens of climate justice. So really integrating this into the work that we do.Elizabeth: That's so cool. I meant to ask this kind of earlier, kind of dig into earlier, but if we can kind of go back a little bit and talk about how you came to this role, like, what is your what was your journey to get. To this position and to and in climate justice in general apps.Kat: That's a great question. I guess it depends on how far back we want to go. So kind of a. This is all relevant so I'll kind of start with. I was a very passionate activist high schooler, and this is like very related to this other, all of this work that I'm doing.[00:07:00] So I grew up in Boise, Idaho, and in middle and high school, I got really involved in social justice movements, specifically in creating safe spaces for LGBTQ kids in Idaho. And In this time period, while I was really engaged in learning about social justice issues, I took a phenomenal environmental science class.I transparently took it because it was the only AP class that didn't have a lab. But I didn't grow up with like a girdle of family. We didn't really recycle or like hike or things like that. I just was like, this is a cool class that I want to, you know, check out. And the teacher did such a phenomenal job of connecting environmental justice with social justice and talking about these larger systems and structures and ecology and the way it works together that I just became my mind was blown with like, Oh, my gosh, this is a whole side of injustices that I've never even learned about before. And so I got the bug and ended up going to [00:08:00] the University of Colorado Boulder to pursue an environmental studies degree public health, really connecting the human environmental socioeconomic relationships with place and people through those different experiences.And while I was at CU Boulder, they have an amazing environmental center where they employ students. To do just really cool work. And so I got to do some really cool peer to peer education and direct experience installing, you know, energy efficient and water efficient upgrades for renters and event planning and all this really cool stuff because I couldn't afford to live in Boulder. So I had to have like five jobs and some of those jobs got to be met through working with the university, doing things directly related to my career.From that, I got the opportunity to work with the city of Boulder and then Boulder County after I graduated and all doing kind of these different types of sustainability work relating to understanding how different energy [00:09:00] and water systems work, building sustainability renter sustainability, connecting all about the public health.It's a great place to be able to learn about all these different opportunities. And then in 2016, I ended up moving back to Boise to help out some family, and during my time there, I was like, okay, well, we'll see what Boise has to offer here in terms of sustainability related jobs, because they weren't quite as, as saturated a market as Boulder.And eventually, I was able to land the opportunity to be the sustainability coordinator at Boise State University, which was like my dream to get to work at a university. Again, I love working with students and education. And at Boise State, it was something where they're like, nothing has really stuck with sustainability. So just start throwing things at a wall and see what sticks, right? Like, we just need something to land here. So I started building out some really great volunteer opportunities for students to go do, you know, recycling at football games and concerts. And that kind of is a great [00:10:00] gateway cause I like to call it into other higher level sustainability action.And just do it during my time there, got this really wonderful, robust engagement program going with students and teachers and found that Pretty much everybody I talked to was enthusiastic and so excited about the innovative opportunities that come with reducing our impact on the planet and really caring for our land.That is something that Idaho really has like land conservation and water conservation and air quality. Those are all things that people can get behind in a bipartisan way in that state. And so we were able to find a lot of allies and just real energy and momentum for moving those programs forward.And during that time I found a really big passion for student leadership and really cultivating spaces for student voice and Understanding that the students are the ones that are experiencing our biggest impacts on climate change in a way that adults don't fully grapple with. I mean, [00:11:00] adults, I mean, our students at Boise State are adults too, because they're, you know, but like they have a different experience than the folks that have been in the bureaucratic system for, you know, decades that just don't see that opportunity for change.And so they really come in with this great, fresh perspective and have zero patience for bureaucracy, which is wonderful and just really can help shape programs in a way that is really just vibrant and exciting. So I got really excited about that work. Did some great, there's some great people there doing the systems level change. And then when this opportunity came up in Portland my partner and I were looking to relocate anyways. And I saw this really wonderful opportunity to get connected to the school system, which is really leading the charge on this work and was really drawn to the fact that the policy does include an intentional approach to mental health and wellness.While at Boise State, I also pursued a master's that led to the creation of a climate anxiety workshop where [00:12:00] we work on practicing a radical imagination for cultivating a future of climate solutions. And that was really inspired by getting to work with the students on the ground at Boise State and hearing what their challenges were.And I thought, you know, if we can bring that kind of work to students at an even younger age when they can start practicing that radical imagination from, you know, second and third grade. Then I think they're going to be able to grapple with the changes that we're seeing in a much healthier way than what we're seeing with our students right now.Elizabeth: Yeah. And actually, I mean, it's funny. I, we actually, we didn't even, I didn't come across you because you're in Portland. I Came across you because of the course that you are teaching for the association for advancement of sustainability and higher education on climate anxiety. So for anyone listening, it's called from climate anxiety to action tools to build a radical imagination.And then it just so happened you were in [00:13:00] Portland and working for the very same district my son goes to school in I was so intrigued by the topic of your course. So can you, let's dive into that like topic of, you know, radical imagination and how that is an antidote to climate anxiety, or I don't know if antidote, but a way to a tool to push through climate anxiety. So can you tell me a little bit more about the concept? What is it about? What what is it?Kat: Yeah, absolutely. So my workshop and the, the framework that I put together, it was really inspired by some fabulous women authors including Naomi Klein and Adrienne Maree Brown and bell hooks. And just the list goes on.Adrienne Marie Brown has this really wonderful concept of she says all organizing is science fiction, where through the act of organizing and strategizing around action that we want to see in this world you're actively trying to create a world that doesn't yet exist. And I just thought that was such a beautiful idea.I [00:14:00] personally really struggled with that anxiety in general, not just climate anxiety, but just anxiety. And know the power of being able to visualize and manifest the outcome that you're trying to get versus the one that you're so scared of happening and how calming that can be for your central nervous system to actually allow yourself to imagine a positive path forward.And so the other author Sarah Jaquette Ray talks about how she worked with her students at the university where she teaches, and had asked them if they could imagine a future of climate solutions, and they had said, you know, I can't even imagine a future, a positive future, you know, that, that does not.In my sight, that's not something that we have an example of in the media is a future of positive a positive future period, but even one of climate solutions. And so all of that really struck with me. I saw this at my own university as well. Students were really guilt ridden and shame ridden around their actions around climate change. And they also had a lot [00:15:00] of despair and distress that was coming from their work and what we were starting to see in some of the literature that I started to understand is how this idea around climate doom is really considered a fourth wave of climate denial. So first we have the idea that, you know, climate denial starts with climate change doesn't exist.It's not real. It moves into, "well, you know, maybe it's real, but it's not human caused." Okay. So the third wave is, "well, maybe it's human caused, but it's not that big of a deal." And then the fourth wave now is "climate change is so severe that everyone's going to die and the world is going to end and like, there's nothing you can do about it."Like it's too far down. And so you get the same effect in all of those different waves where people just feel totally paralyzed and disempowered to making action. And so my workshop starts to unpack the roots of climate change and climate as coming from, you know, historic systemic oppression and injustice, the same systems that lead [00:16:00] to other systems of oppression like through this term that Naomi Klein calls extractivism, where we're just constantly taking without caretaking, we move into this understanding of climate anxiety as this form of, disempowerment that has the same roots as the roots of climate change. And then we start to practice building a new way of understanding the world through different values that are more centered around community and hope and justice and actually create a physical image of what the future would look like if we were to build that world with those values in mind.So we start to, we start By unpacking the values that have led to climate change and climate anxiety, we redefine the value that we want to design our world with. And then the thing that kind of brings the workshop together, and I think is the thing that I'm contributing, like I said, a lot of these concepts and ideas are not new.But the thing that I'm trying to help people really take the next step when is actually creating a physical, almost collage or image. Well, it is digital in this case, because it's an online workshop, but [00:17:00] of what. The future can actually look like if we practice designing our local spaces or homes or schools or cities with those values in mind knowing that when we see them replicated on the small scale and understand the power that happens when we disrupt these systems, even at the like molecular level, so to speak, then it does have this larger scale effect.And so at the end of all this too, I go through and I illustrate those different workshop outcomes because everybody has something totally different that they create with each workshop. They might like have redesigned a new apartment building or a, you know, suburban neighborhood, and then I'll go through and kind of illustrate what those look like and yeah, I've just been collecting those stories and illustrations through part of that process, which I hope to share someday.Elizabeth: Yeah, I would love that. I think that like, I mean, that's something that I like in the part of this project that I'm on, I've found that like there also is like this rewiring of my brain [00:18:00] to see the possibilities. Cause it can be so hard when you're you know, we were just talking about 107 degree day in Boise when you, and like, you know, and, you know, these just severe weather events that we have seen so many of the summer that it can be really difficult to see the possibilities and, and it really does take, it takes that concerted time, that concerted, radical imagination to rewire your brain and really think differently. And I, you know, that's for me, it's been kind of a slow moving approach through by way of this book that I'm writing .What I had hoped from it what are you seeing from others throughout the course? What are some, like, have you talked to folks who've taken the, the course before who really have, like, it's changed kind of their vision or view of the world and possibilities, or are you seeing that in real time with folks who are in the course now?Kat: I think we're seeing it more in. [00:19:00] Real time in a way that's been really helpful. This course is special and unique because it is a two hour session once a month over six months. In the past, I've had to do these workshops as either like a three hour, one day intensive or like I've done it for students as like a two day 16 hour total workshop. And so it's really cool to see it. The concepts be able to build on each other and have people have time in between each session to really sit with the different materials and start to see how they can impact their lives.Because what we're really talking about is developing a new framework for seeing possibilities and solutions and also understanding the way that we're talking about climate change is so important to the way that we feel. Effective and making change and understanding that all of this has an impact on our sense of resilience, which is climate.Anxiety comes from a feeling of not being resilient to the change that we're [00:20:00] expecting. And so how can we really start to redesign the way that we interact with each other in the world? And also take some of the negative lens away from the way that we're seeing the world. To actually open our eyes to the solutions that are already taking place because it is a complete myth that like no action has happened and there's amazing things going on around us, you know, living in Portland I am just blown away every day by the connectivity and the commitment to innovation and action that I see around here. And it's really easy to get the negative goggles on and only see, you know, the things that are not going the way that we want them to.So in terms of impact the, some of the folks I've talked to that have taken the course in the past past said that it was really helpful in rethinking the way that they're talking about calls the climate action, especially in such a way that we can, instead of being like, the world is ending, what are you going to do about it? Having it be like, Okay. [00:21:00] Let's build a new world together. And that's a totally different feeling that comes from those kinds of calls. Yeah, and I'm just excited. This has been going on for a year or so now. So I'm excited to continue connecting with people who've engaged with it and see if it's been how it's been helpful. And I think just like that practice of actually Tangibly like we can talk about. Oh, yeah, it's great to imagine a new future and stuff, but like actually forcing yourself to get down and actually play with designing it. I think as part of it, that can be really really impactful to get a sense of efficacy again.Elizabeth: So one of the other things you've written, you wrote your you had sent me your thesis when we connected a while back on climate communications and bridging the hope gap. Can you tell me what you mean by the hope gap and what do you think are the communication solutions to bridging that gap? And is that something that kind of aligns with, with your concepts around radical imagination as well?Kat: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That's it's all it's all [00:22:00] connected. And so the hope gap concept comes from the Yale Project on Climate Communication director, Anthony Leiserowitz, has this concept about there's this gap between the severity of the scale of climate change and the way that we communicate it and the Ability for one person to feel like they are capable of making change.And so there's this gap between what the level of scale that, you know, needs to happen and how effective you're going to be in making that happen. And so it's like this, this gap where. You can't have enough hope to get from point A to point B if you if that's the way it's communicated. Yeah. Does that make sense?Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's challenging because we're, there's so many contradictories and the way climate change is communicated, not contradictories. A lot of the intentional media directed at spurring change [00:23:00] is riddled with individual responsibility. And I'm not saying that that's not important, but the blame and the shame around it can just create this huge gap between, like, I can't, there's no way that I can do enough. And so the idea behind that, that radical imagination that adrienne maree brown talks about is really looking at how can we bridge this gap by collectively coming together and imagining what a future of climate solutions could look like.And together we can imagine multiple futures of solutions and that's kind of the amazing part is because we have one image of like doom and gloom, flurry of burning buildings and like hurricanes and storms and all of our heads. And then, but then the really amazing thing is that there's actually, you know, thousands if not more, but different pathways to what a future of solutions could look like.And so when you can come together with people and actually imagine radical meaning grasping at the root, like getting at the root of the problem, imagining what all of this could look like you can start to bridge that gap [00:24:00] because when you're working in that collective, you can start to build out those systems in your local spaces that really show what this future could look like.And you see that with co ops, you see that with community gardens, you see that with like biking infrastructure and public transit, like you can start to take it as simple as some of the most basic concepts around sustainability and climate action, and just really like nurturing that in your, in your space, starting to understand, oh, I'm actually actively disrupting the system by recycling my can and by sharing clothes and food with my community and how am I, how am I actively disrupting these systems.Elizabeth: Yeah, I think this is the realization that I've had over the last several years is that you don't have to, it's not like I have to like, all of a sudden go do things that are not in my Purview or even interest levels like I'm not necessarily going to be the one going to do like tech stuff or like somehow single handedly working on like solar [00:25:00] energy. But it's like looking at the spaces that we already exist in the, the skills and the experiences that we have and the passions that we have like Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson's Venn diagram of climate action. It's you know, this in your and where you are at with the people that are around you and there are ways to do it in a really radical way now.Kat: What I really love about that too, is because climate change is framed in such a scarcity mindset, which makes us all feel like we're constantly grasping. We don't have enough money. We don't have enough time. We don't have enough knowledge or expertise to solve this problem. But by reframing it that way, we're actually in an abundance mindset where there are enough people working on this. I'm not the only one. And all of us have unique skills that we can contribute to this cause, whether you're somebody who loves the garden or loves to sew, like there's something everyone can contribute and you don't have to be the person to save it.I used to share this with my student team, who all, who would get a little anxious about, you know, they each had different skill sets that they wanted to contribute to the [00:26:00] team, but each one also felt burdened with having to lead the whole movement. And I was like, you know, on Star Trek, we don't need a bunch of Captain Kirk, we need. We need a person running the maps. We need a person navigating things. Like, we don't need one person that's telling everybody what to do because that's not going to get us anywhere. We need the people who are going to facilitate relationships and I don't know that they appreciated the reference, but I think it helped them understand, like, the idea of, like, all the different people, all the different skills that can come together and just kind of how wonderful that is to have a diversity of skills and perspectives.Elizabeth: So before we end, can you share some resources that you think that folks listening here might be interested in that are related to your work and what. You think will be helpful. Oh, my gosh. Yes. I can I'll link to these on the newsletter as well. So absolutely.Kat: So there's some great online resources out there, [00:27:00] like the climate mental health network and Anya Kamenetz also has a great regular letter that she sends out as well that I recommend checking out. She has some good communication tools and techniques. And then some of the books I've been referencing today that I just consume and love are things like "Emergent Strategies: Shaping Change for Changing Worlds" by adrienne maree brown. " A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety" by Sarah Jaquette Ray. Oh my gosh, and then. "This Changes Everything: capitalism versus the climate" by Naomi Klein is wonderful. "All We Can Save" is a wonderful collection of anthology of essays as well. Which I'd highly recommend people check out. It's a really great read. "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer is a great read. Like, there's just so many, that's the cool thing about all this work is there's so many wonderful books and resources, so we can definitely link to that.It's funny how all this is emerging at the same time. So I wrote my thesis in 2020 and 2021. And, you know, [00:28:00] half of these like sources and all this literature started coming out in 2020, which was like, it just felt like this really kind of emergent moment where everyone was connecting the dots.Elizabeth: Yeah. And one, one. A book you recommended to me that then I all of a sudden see everywhere is Generation Dread by Britt Wray. Like that one I mean, it's, I think that her work is very similar and symbiotic with Sarah Jaquette Ray as well. So with that where can people read your work find you?Kat: Yeah well, you can, always reach out to me at I'm on the list on the Portland Public Schools site if you want to connect at all about climate anxiety and climate justice and education. It's a really exciting movement happening right now. You can also check out the climate anxiety course on the issue website to see a little bit about what that's about. I haven't updated in a while, but I, I do update those illustrations from the workshop called [00:29:00] Envision Our Futures. So it's envision underscore our underscore futures. And that's where I've been posting just a few of the illustrations that we have made from the different workshops. And I plan to post a lot more. So if you've got Anything like that that you want to share. I'm really excited to connect with others.Elizabeth: Great. And sorry, the envision our futures. Is that Instagram? You said, yeah, that's Instagram. Well, awesome. And Are you planning on doing this course again, the radical imagination course after because this, this next one, the current one, you're, facilitating is from started in June and ends in November, right? And then do you plan to do future ones or is this kind of like we'll see as things come?Kat: I think we'll see as it goes. I also am more than happy to facilitate these workshops for groups. And so I've worked with different university classes to facilitate this [00:30:00] workshop. I've taught it as like a one credit weekend workshop before.So I'm, and I've worked with, nonprofits. It's nice when you can have a group of people that work together on the same project, because you can actually take a project or a mission statement or what have you and use it as the project that you're working on through the workshop. So that's something also, if people are interested in, please feel free to reach out to me and I'm happy to, to do that as well. That's always fun. But yeah, we'll see. We'll see what the future brings. I'm kind of letting it be emergent at this point.Elizabeth: Yeah, that's great. Well, thank you so much for talking with me. It is really just a pleasure connecting with you. And I love hearing about the ideas and concepts that you're working with. And I really love that you're working for my son's school district.Kat: Yeah, I'm excited to be here. Thanks so much for having me today. It's been fun.[00:31:00]Cramming for the Apocalypse is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, I talk with Lilly Hankins and Celeste Baskett who are both mental health professionals who are finding ways to use their skills to address the climate crisis. One way they’re doing that is through Climate Cafés focused on small group group discussions about climate grief. Because climate grief is such a large part of the Cramming for the Apocalypse project, I thought it would be a great opportunity to introduce the topic by way of this interview. In this episode, I talked with Lilly and Celeste about climate grief, mental health in climate change, and privilege as it relates to climate justice.Resources from the episode:* We mention Families for Climate where we know each other from. They’re a very cool climate justice organization in Oregon that is harnessing the power of parents, caregivers, and their children to work in coalitions to advocate for climate action. Full disclosure, I run FFC’s communications.* Lilly’s Google Doc of amazing resources* Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Anxiety by Britt Wray as well as the Substack newsletter Gen Dread * Good Grief Network* Climate-Aware Therapist directory (from Climate Psychology Alliance North America)-  Credits: * Cramming for the Apocalypse artwork by Amanda Burnham* Music by DayFoxThanks for reading Cramming for the Apocalypse! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.FULL TRANSCRIPT: Climate Grief and How to Process It - Episode 2Elizabeth: [00:00:00] Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode two of this podcast. The first one was published many months ago over six months ago, and I finally found some time and some resources to be able to do some light editing. And I have time to focus on this, and so I'm excited to bring an interview that I had with Lily Hankins and Celeste Baskett, who I talked to last May of 2023, so we'll reference some of the weather during that period of time, and about climate grief and dealing with climate grief and looking at it through a mental health lens, and Also, through a social justice lens it was a really great conversation, and I hope you enjoyed.Thank you so much for joining us today for the next audio version of Cramming for the Apocalypse. I'm here, with Lilly Hankins and celeste Baskett. I wanted to talk with both of you because This book and this project is all really rooted in kind of my own Climate grief and trying to get past it and understand it and doing it in a way that is productive.I really think it's important to delve into what climate grief is, what climate anxiety is, and then also how we process it. And so, so that's why I wanted to bring you here today. And so let's maybe just start with having each of you introduce yourself and tell me a little bit about yourself, your background and how you came to focus on mental health as it relates to climate change.Lilly: Hi. Thanks for having me or us.[00:02:00] I'm Lily Hankins. And I'm a mental health therapist. I'm a LCSW licensed clinical social worker. I have been a therapist for about five or six years, and I worked in a various different settings. I went into graduate school, not necessarily knowing that I was going to be a therapist.I sort of thought I might, I was in a social work program and I thought I might get out and do all this like big systems change community organize organizing type work. And I had a initial job doing some immigrant rights organizing out of grad school and then realized that I I function best and I'm most passionate about working with people in smaller groups or one on one and sort of veered back into the kind of individual work.My current job where I've been for the past couple years is primarily working with teenagers In a school based health center. So I work with high schoolers. I'm also a parent. I have a seven year old daughter, so she was born in 2016. And although I have been pretty aware of climate and environmental disaster, environmental things throughout my life, like I remember when I was a teenager, I was sort of became aware of things and fires and wildfires and got involved with Sierra Club a little bit and then, But it's been kind of on and off, like my ability to look directly at it versus look away from it.And when my daughter was born in 2016, and then six months later was the election of that year. And I remember having a conversation with a few of my friends who had small babies around that same time and, or were pregnant and feel, and, and just saying like, Oh yeah, I feel like one of the big things that has just happened and just been cemented with this. The election of Donald Trump is that we're, we as a country are not going to do anything about climate change and we've cemented the future of my child and it was, I went into a pretty dark place around it and kind of couldn't think about it for a little while and it was Coming to finding I had to kind of go through a journey and find my own places to land my climate grief and my climate anxiety as a parent and to this little person to be able to come back around and, and, and be where I'm at now and not that I have anything figured out at all, but it was, I think, two years ago, I discovered it was a friend of a family member introduced me to a podcast called how to save a planet I heard an episode with Ayana talking about her matrix of Venn diagram of like, what needs to be done, what are you good at, and what are you passionate about, and that's where you need to go with climate action. You don't need to do everything or solve [00:05:00] everything or have every answer, but also not doing anything because it's too big and scary.Is also not helpful. So find your place. We need you come in. And I sort of started thinking, like, what is that for me? And then I was like, Oh, climate and mental health. Like, I know that this has been absolutely devastating for my own mental health. And I'm sure I just can't even, you know, and then that was my first kind of entry point into looking at that.And then I was like, how are people dealing with this? And what's even happening? And I found various groups. One is the Good Grief Network. You That has like, you know, doing some really amazing work. I wanted to do one of their groups, I still haven't. But I, I instead found a group for parents that was worldwide and it was led by Elizabeth Biard, I'm not sure I'm pronouncing her last name correctly, but she wrote a book called Parenting in a Changing Climate.Mm-hmm. .That was, I, I really rec, I strongly recommend for parents or caregivers who are dealing with climate anxiety or climate grief. Or any climate feelings. And I was just lucky enough to find her Zoom group. A Zoom group that she was running. And I think it was 10 weeks every Saturday for parents and caregivers of young children.And there were people in the U. S., people in Canada, people in the U. K., and South Africa. It was really kind of incredible. I think there were like 10 or 12 of us. But just having this regular container and space to talk about All sort of elements and it was this structured group that she put together based on her reading and research and coaching practice.It was, it was really, really, really powerful and and change things quite a lot for me in terms of just feeling like, okay, I have, I have somewhat of a direction that I feel like I want to go in. And then. Coming from that is actually where I found families for climate, which is a group that Celeste and I have have kind of landed ourselves in in terms of volunteering here locally in Portland, taking, [00:07:00] you know, they organize parents and families to take action and climate change and It was helpful.I wanted to find some local stuff and connect with people here. So that, that was my next jumping point, but always with this interest of , how can I, I remember coming out of that group being, how can I create more of this for people for, I mean, I was specifically thinking about parents because that's where I came to it from, but everyone, right.And This idea that it was it was so instrumental for me to have a place to process some of my own feelings and Thoughts and be a total emotional mess and crying and messy and silly and, you know, all the things and I wanted to, you know, I had this idea of like, I want to, how can I get involved in creating that more here for people?So then I've been thinking about that for a little while and then got connected with Celeste through Families for Climate and then she and I have done a little bit of a pilot project around climate cafes that we can talk more [00:08:00] about.Elizabeth: Yeah. Awesome. Thank you, Lily. How about you, Celeste?Celeste: Well, I also am a licensed clinical social worker like Lily and also sort of started in mental health and then have moved, moved towards what can I do about the climate crisis?And for me I grew up in the Bay Area in California and grew up in a family that spent a lot of time outdoors backpacking, hiking, cross country skiing. I mean, to some degree, I suppose it wasn't necessarily my parents. I mean, my parents did some of that, but I think it was just something that I, as a child and as a young person, really gravitated towards.And I did Outward Bound one summer, and then I organized my friends in the next summer to do our own. Three week backpacking trip along the John Muir trail that goes from Yosemite up to Lake Tahoe. And so I've [00:09:00] just always been someone who just Wants to be in wild places and in nature. And that's I mean, and I love, I love people and I love living in a city and having all the things you have in a city.But I always try to get out into nature when I can. And and so as a, as a social worker you know, you know, I started my career working for nonprofits. It's decided, I think, similar to Lily, that I was best in kind of a one on one kind of small group situation was sort of where my talents most came out.And I started ended up worked in community mental health for a little while and then have been in private practice for a number of years now. And I have two children who are now 11 and 14. And I think that is where, even though [00:10:00] climate change has sort of worried me more and more. As, as I've gotten older, as the effects of it become more and more apparent, I mean living here in Portland and just all the changes we just can see every day right in front of us, terms of like the weather we're having right now, and I find myself often Googling, like I did it this morning, I was like, record dry.May Portland, Oregon 2023 and I look through the results like looking for somebody to just sort of acknowledge this is not right. Yeah, like it is not supposed to have stopped raining this this early in May. Yeah, I can never. But you did. Yeah, you did the same one. Yes, absolutely. I did. I don't know if it was exactly the same words, but I was doing this sad and what is happening in May.Elizabeth: Yeah. Well, I mean, when it was like 95 degrees in early May, it was like, this can't be [00:11:00] right. Like this. Yeah. And it's not. Right. It's not. Right.Celeste: I've been here. I've been in Portland now 27 years. And so long enough to have sort of established this connection to Portland when the weather sort of was still.What I thought of as Portland weather. Well, and, and Lily, I don't know what you found when you did that Google search, but I am always very disappointed by those searches. I find like, I did find like a couple of little news stories about the heat, you know, like you, like you said, Elizabeth 95 in what was that May 18th or 90 was 93.I forget the record, the record temps at that weekend, but there's nothing on oh, well, how is our rainfall on track for how it normally is because it kind of seems like the spigot has been shut off. And as far as we can tell, it might not rain again until late October, like it did last summer when it finally it rained a lot more into early July, which was more typical, but then it just stopped.So[00:12:00] I, I always find that kind of crazy making where there's nobody Sort of tracking that reporting on it online. Like, look what's happening. Here's where we're at. And I don't know, maybe that's a space that somebody could fill. Somebody wants to sort of put something out there that says, Okay, for those of you who are worried.Look, I'm worried, too. And I think and that kind of leads into the work that Lily and I have started doing through Families for Climate with the climate cafes is just that feeling of, okay, I'm not crazy. I can sit in a room with other people and say. This has me scared. This isn't normal. This feels wrong.And then have other people notice that too, just like we kind of are in this conversation right now. Lily, that's gratifying to hear you did the same Google search. Because I think what we've you know, what, what we've encountered and we can get more into that is that, you know, you just I think I [00:13:00] start to feel like a broken record with my friends and also just kind of a downer, oh, there she is again talking about her climate worries and but I think just to finish explaining a little bit more about my personal journey here my children.I really love being in the outdoors also and my son who is 14 when he was maybe 10 or 11 he got really into birdwatching, which is so sort of surprising in some ways for just a young child to sort of get that specific of a passion, but he really has become quite. advanced in his abilities to, like, recognize birds and know about their behavior and very consistent in that as a passion for him.And and so I think also just having children and seeing that, I mean, I'll cry if I say too much about it right now, but just to think like Oh, he can't [00:14:00] necessarily keep seeing birds his whole life because there might not be any, it's just so devastating. We'll use that word also to, to think too much about, I mean, and that's just like one little piece ofclimate change, right, is, is being with wildlife.And then there's all the other pieces about human health and economic impact. And you know, they, you are all very well aware of, but I think that like where it can hit for each of us. I think it kind of hit us personally in these different places where we think about what will be missing in the future or what the future could be like so.So anyway, I also found myself going to families for climate to sort of figure out, well, what can I I need to do something. And then families for climate connected me with Lily and really has her experience. Of being part of these groups. And so I, you know, said Lily said, well, what if we try this?And I said, great. So, but that gets us [00:15:00] more to kind of what we're currently.Elizabeth: Yeah. Well, and actually, before we even get to that, I think it might, even just like briefly, so the terms like climate anxiety, climate grief, eco anxiety, all of that are fairly new to. To the world of climate justice, not that the feelings or emotions are new, but, I think that that's just beginning to be put out there.I think I remember actually, I mean, this is what happens when my, you know, newsletter and my like stuff gets out into the world. Somebody commented on, I don't know, it was probably Facebook or something. you know, I'm down with the prepping, but like eco anxiety, like people are making up new words all the time and kind of like you know Dismissive kind of way, but I think that it's worth even just like a couple minutes of explanation of what is, what is it?What is climate anxiety? What is climate grief? What is eco anxiety? It's kind of different term, terminology, all about the same kind of thing. Celeste: Lily, you want to you want to take a start at that?Lilly: [00:16:00] I'll take a stab. Sure. I mean, I think like, it's funny, I actually I feel like I should, I should be able to just Give you a really succinct, clear definition of these things. And I'm yeah, it's kind of might go all over the place, but I think you know, there is, I will name that.I think I've seen sort of in the resources and things that I'm tapped into people talking about that. Speaking about climate anxiety as if it's like something new is an, is sort of a there's an element of privilege in that in the sense that it's becoming more of a term that we're hearing in the general population because people who have been so insulated from the immediate effects of changing climate and like environmental disasters are starting to really feel worried about it.And Impacted by it in a new way, whereas. You know, frontline communities, people in like the global South or whatever other terminology you want to use people who are in places that where [00:17:00] the sea level is rising and their homes are threatened and there's been widespread famine and people are dying because there's literally not enough food because of changes to the weather, like they've been.Affected by it for decades. And obviously had plenty of anxiety or worry or grief or stress or, you know, any number of emotional and mental health effects of all of that for decades, or, you know, generations if we think about The, you know, climate as a, or climate change as related to colonialism and genocide, right?Like decades back in our country, like native folks have felt feelings about the devastation of the environment for many, many generations. Centuries. Yeah. Yeah. And and yes, there's. More and more attention being paid in the recent years to these ideas that specifically because the effects of climate change and, environmental changes are becoming so visible and [00:18:00] constantly in the news more and more people are experiencing symptoms of anxiety.So, like, worry, difficulty sleeping You know, not be overthinking and being in head in our head about worries about specific to whether it's worrying about whether there will be birds in the future or worrying about wildfires are worrying about things like that more and more people are experiencing those kinds of symptoms.Also grief, some more of the sort of sadness, like things that might be more associated with like depression, sadness, hopelessness, feeling like it's worthless. Feeling like yeah, I mean, just grief, right, which is to say, to be saying goodbye to beloved things to be looking around us and, and seeing things disappear or beloved places.There's a whole vocabulary out there about new, it is true like a whole new vocabulary kind of being, being. Carried about the word like solastalgia, I [00:19:00] think is being brought into the, which is, it's, it's, it's grief and sadness over a place place that is changing a beloved place that is no longer the same.And, and there's, there's a whole other world of vocabulary around that too. I was going to say something else about anxiety. Oh, to say that You know, in the world, in the mental health world, there's this we have to diagnose people with things in order to have people come in and, you know, especially if insurance is going to pay for therapy for someone, right.Or to be able to say like, this is sort of the bucket of thing that you're dealing with and that's what we're going to work on. Americans, right. Super and, and related to insurance structures and billing and. Profit and it's so annoying. But there is an important thing that from what I've read and learned about in the mental health and climate overlap world, that it's very important not to [00:20:00] pathologize, not to say, to say that actually feeling anxious at the prospect of continued environmental change is very normal.Like that is a normal human reaction. And if you feel that way, Okay. That's fine. It does not mean you have a mental health disorder and the same with, with grief and despair and all the things it's, it's normal to feel. These things and yet we don't talk about them or talk about it. I don't know if I gave a great definition.Elizabeth: No, that's perfect. And actually you've touched on some things that we'll talk about later too, but But let's kind of parlay that into kind of why we're talking here today. So just as some context for people listening. I know these two from families for climate because I run their communications. And.It's an amazing climate justice organization that really is working at the local Oregon level, but also in partnership with other states. I think it's really being a part of a coalition of, of climate justice organizations, locally, regionally, and even nationally, in some [00:21:00] sense and And one of the programs that Lilly and Celeste are bringing to this to Families for Climate and to Oregon in kind of a formal and informal way, I guess, is the Is climate cafes. Which is a way of of addressing or addressing is the word but really honing in on this climate anxiety climate grief, and particularly, it doesn't, I imagine it's probably not just parents that are coming to these but I think that, you know, what you two spoke to is really, you know that that anxiety heightened so much more when you had a kid and you.And when Your kids experiences start, we're starting to be affected because of climate change. And, and, you know, I get teary every time I think about it, because that is really what, was something that was a, you know, I thought about before having my son who I was pregnant with him in 2016, during that horrible election.And Has [00:22:00] just heightened more and more as I think about what the future looks like, and it's so unknown. You know, we just, you know, we have a sense of what it could be, but it's so different from what our parents had think about for the future for us. Anyway, so, my, kind of bringing it back to the climate cafes.I would love it if you could talk about what climate cafe. Cafes are and how they are involved in, you know, in addressing climate anxiety and what is their purpose and goal?Celeste: Yeah, let you take that one Celeste.I'm sorry, Lily, did you say you want me to start on that? Yeah. Okay, I'll be I'll be happy to say a bit about it and then and then you can jump in. So, as I understand it, you know, the climate cafe model was borrowed from the model created to talk about death and dying called death cafe is because facing mortality is something that people have trouble doing or talking with their family members about What did they want to happen if they you know, say needed to be put on life support or, you know, how do you arrange for things or just death [00:23:00] and dying in general.And so this model was created to help people, face more directly talk more directly about. Difficult, painful topic. And and Lily, you may know who the name of the person. Do you know the name of the person who then, like, decided to use that model to address climate feelings about the climate?I could look, I could do a little Googling. Yeah. Okay. Or read back through the notes of the trainings that I went through, but I can't remember. Okay. So then that model was borrowed basically to get, you know, the idea is you bring a small group of people together in a space with.facilitators, where the goal is just to express, you know, feelings, thoughts, what's on your mind and not to focus so much on, okay, what, what do we need to do? What do we need to do? Because that is so often where we as humans go and, and in part we I can't do that because it's a [00:24:00] defense mechanism that people engage in because it's hard to feel.It's very hard to feel helpless. It's hard to feel out of control. And it, has some very good adaptive purposes to say, okay, we're going to do something about this bad thing happening to me, whatever it is, whetherit's, a family member who's sick or you've How to fight with somebody or, you know, whatever the difficult thing happening is in life., it can be helpful to, to take action, but it is also then becomes a problem then when. People can't sit with their feelings and end up doing a lot of things that aren't very helpful to do and then the feelings are left there unattended to, and we can't and I think people can also end up feeling quite guilty.When we go into doing mode, because then we, the idea of doing is, well, I'm going to fix it, and then you, and then [00:25:00] when you can't, because it's something often that is much bigger than you are there's this feeling of, I'm not doing enough. I did the wrong thing. I didn't do it soon enough. And then that guilt can then become very You know, it's heavy and it and guilt doesn't promote good action, guilt kind of weighs us down and actually can prevent us from from doing it doesn't serve a good purpose there and then becomes not adaptive. And so so creating a space then for people to talk about this is how I'm feeling and to try to notice the pressure to do and kind of take that out of the room. I think can be very helpful for people to have that space that we don't often find in other parts of our lives.So that's a little introduction. Lily, what else do you want to say about the model?Lilly: I think you, you covered most of it. That I would, I would highlight. I was just going to mention that, [00:26:00] I mean, I don't know that if there's a specific individual to call out, but the, it's the Climate Psychology Alliance.That is sort of the group. There's a network of folks, there's a Climate Psychology Alliance UK, and that has been doing a lot with climate cafes and then More recently, the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America is the group that put the training on that I went to that kind of got me thinking about doing this.And Yeah, I think the other piece that I would just add to everything that you said, Celeste, about kind of the purpose and benefit of having a space like that. I think that, so what we were just talking about, right, like how frustrating is when you do a Google search for why is the weather so different and there's nothing and it's like, oh, okay, I guess no one's worried about this, right? It's just me. And so the power of Being able to be in a space with people who are concerned together.Makes it feel like this is [00:27:00] something real, and it can be really validating and recentering, but and I think it also combats this one of the big things that I think is is so challenging about when we're looking at the ginormous problem that is climate change and environment, our relationship to the environment in general is that.You look around, and things are just going on as normal, and people aren't talking about it, it seems, or thinking about it, it seems, and people are just sort of still doing these things that, on the one hand, we are being told are, like, actively harmful and devastating, and on the other hand, we're doing them every day and The fact that we don't talk about it and that we're not reckoning with the feelings of it, I think not, not dealing with the feelings allows us to keep doing.The harmful things not not each of us right because also there's all of what Celeste said about guilt and it's not about getting into like a guilt place about, when, when [00:28:00] did I drive my car or whatever but as a society as a collective, the fact that we're not talking about it or reckoning with it I think we have to have it in order to keep perpetuating all the harm on the environment, we have to cut ourselves off from our feelings about it.And so, you know, Reconnecting to those feelings about it individually has huge benefits, but I also passionately believe that like collectively does too.Elizabeth: Absolutely. Yeah. And one of the things that like, I've, I've been thinking and writing about a lot in this whole project and kind of moving forward with my own emotions and action is that those emotions can be so paralyzing.You know, you know, some people might kind of like you said, Celeste, there's, it's a double edged sword. You could like take action in lieu of like addressing the emotions. And then that's, also during harm, but it's also paralyzing. And like, because it does feel, I think for me prior to actually finding kind of like with the, I have [00:29:00] the same You know, Dr.Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson Venn diagram moment, where I'm like, this is where I can get involved. But prior to that, it's like, and it's, you know, it's still like go back and forth feeling like it's futile, whatever I do does not matter, because we need the worldwide governments to get together and solve this problem.But that's not useful either. And so, how, how does processing emotions kind of, you know, I know that, like, the end goal isn't necessarily, you know, the goal of these climate cafes are to really process and get through emotions, but how do those. That, how does that processing get you out of the paralysis, get you out of that kind of yeah, that feeling stuck mode in some ways.And, and also I'll just say this too. I feel that's the same way with, you know We're all in Portland and thinking about the Cascadia subduction zone earthquake. While it's not climate change specific, it's [00:30:00] exactly the same kind of disaster that we could be experiencing on a grand scale with climate change.And while everybody I know in Portland is like, Oh yeah, it's going to happen. And they think about it. But it's so big and scary to even think about how to even prepare on an individual basis. And so there is like a paralysis with that too. That I, and one friend in particular, she's like, I can't even think about it. It scares the s**t out of me. So I am not going to think about it. And that I think is really the same thing as climate grief and in a nutshell and so I don't know I guess maybe responding to my many different thoughts and ideas around that paralysis and what that means in these formats of like the climate cafes.Celeste: Well, I really like what Lily said about. There's something about being in a group, being in a collective. [00:31:00] Being in a group of people who then are you hear them feeling some of the same things you're feeling that That more is possible when we share our feelings with other people and even if it's just one other person like one on one with a therapist or a friend but I think getting it together in a group like that. There's even More of that power of like, okay, it's not, it's not just me, it's you and it's you and it's you and it's you. And there is that sort of paradox of doing and feeling that you're bringing up. Like is if we say, okay, we're getting together as a group and we're just gonna talk about feelings and not what we're, what we're doing.And yet paradoxically attending to those feelings and. I think does lead to less paralysis. It does create room for more action. , [00:32:00] and sort of the mechanism of how that works, I guess, is you know, it, is not that easy to talk about. But but I think, recognizing our helplessness and our powerlessness to a degree, kind of paradoxically, I think then can create more room to actually feel okay, I have this little bit of power.I can do this one little thing. And again, it sort of feels sort of mysterious, like, well, how do you explain how that works? And. And yet it does. Lily, do you, do you have more or Elizabeth? I see you. Do you have a thought?Lilly: Oh, I, I love what you, what you were just saying. Plus, I think that's so that that is true.And it's kind of, I don't know. I mean, it's, it speaks to like, I'm getting all excited because it's sort of like how I feel about therapy in general and like the magic of it taking, taking something and in relationship, shifting it. But the thing that like, there's like the image that was kind of in my mind when we were talking about this is like as if when our emotions are just with [00:33:00] us, and we're just holding them but also kind of holding them at bay, it's almost like this like water that we're trying to sort of hold up with a dam.And, and we're just damn like fortifying the dam and like weeks spring and then we sort of damn it back up again. And if we can come, I think there's something that happens when we can attend to them. And let ourselves like, let the overwhelming wave flow over us and let it fully be felt and particularly be felt in relation or, you know, in the, in the witnessing of other people and witnessing other people sort of have their own waves that it's like, we can, there's a sense of movement, I think, and energy that's part of emotion.Right, like emotions. That's part of what they do for us is they communicate to us that something is happening that's important and kind of lead us to want to do something. But, but when they're all like jumbled and and we're trying to sort of tamp them down because we need to get through our day sometimes we can't tap into that.[00:34:00]The power of them. So I don't know. This is maybe kind of just my, this is maybe just me actualizing, like sort of how I think about doing the emotions work of one on one therapy, but also in like groups like these, it helps sort of funnel all of that energy, like from this like swirling thing that isn't really going anywhere to, okay.Like all of this grief and all of this worry. A makes sense and B has important information for us about things that are important to us and our values and what we care about. There's this is like a, I think this is like from an act, which is a type of therapy, trainer, but they talk about like within, within wounds are our values like where we hurt care.Elizabeth: And it's a good thing that we care and that we're feeling these feelings. You know, shows empathy and compassion.Lilly: Absolutely. And, but, but on their own, but they can be just so over, [00:35:00] it's so overwhelming and it's so overwhelming to feel like you're just, you're feeling these, but the world is going on all around you.So is it something wrong with me? And so to be able to say no, no, this is where this is the good stuff. This is where the power is. And this is where we can fuel ourselves to do what is needed and do what is possible. And everything is not possible and we can't do everything, but like, What we can shift them from something that feel to build the emotions right from something that feels debilitating and makes it impossible to take action and makes us want to numb.I mean, that's another piece right as if we're not tending to these emotions in a way, in some way, then we're going to try to numb out to it right and whether that's TV or substance use or whatever it is we try to sort of escape somehow. So, if we're in, they can, they can be Debilitating, but if we can tend to them correctly, they can also be really fueling for continuing to [00:36:00] show up in a situation that feels impossible all the time.Elizabeth: Yeah. I love that water metaphor too, because I think that like I was, when you were talking about, I was like, I was taking that also, this is the writer and me envisioning, Oh, well, you know, maybe it's like writing that wave, like everybody creating a boat together that we can all get in and kind of go with that wave.And so there's that. You know, when I'm thinking about that metaphor with the project that I'm working on and like building skills, we can build a much stronger, you know, for, you know, boat and that can help ride out that wave together as a community. And I think that that's that's true in in processing these emotions as well.So Lily, you had talked about this when you were when you were kind of describing the definition of climate anxiety, but I've been really trying to reckon with it as well. They're like, the very white privileged framing around it. And also you know Is that the environmental scientist Sarah Jackette Ray, have you [00:37:00] read her her scientific American story?Let's see. I have the quote here. She's not necessarily invalidating climate anxiety because it's there and it's real. And I think, and Brit Wray talks about this kind of paradox as well of privilege and her book. Generation dread.She compares it to white fragility where it can quote, suck up all the oxygen in the room and devoting resources toward appeasing the dominant group. And I think that that's, you know, you think about, you know, like white women's tears, you know, when somebody is explaining their experiences of racism, and then it becomes about the white woman's emotions.And so, you know, I think that I, you know, being, for those of who are listening and not seeing, like, we're all three white women so I guess my question, and this is something I'm navigating too, because I really do work to try to bring a climate justice approach to the framing of things.So the question is like, do you see this? And you kind of answered that [00:38:00] already, Lily, but also how do you think we, meaning white folks in particular, especially those of us who are over the last, like, decade or so, really coming to terms with the fact that not only is this affecting us, it's affecting the entire planet and has been for decades specifically for communities of color, for people in lower income Income countries.So both acknowledging our anxiety while also not sucking up all the oxygen in the room, like how, what I guess are your thoughts about that and recommendations for those of us who are really need to process these emotions, but also need to do it in a productive way where we're contributing to the oxygen versus sucking it up.Celeste: I mean, I, I think my thought on that is a little bit like on the. You know, this overused metaphor of on the plane where they're like, you've got to put your own oxygen mask on before you assist the person next to you. We [00:39:00] all need to take care of our own stuff. And we can't Show up for, our coalition building and building those bridges across different communities, whether it be race or culture or nationality or and sort of tending to ourselves.And I think that's where, when we've been talking about, like, like Lily's idea of holding all the emotions behind the dam, we aren't able to be as helpful, to do as much, to be as productive. And so, we do need to take care of ourselves. And sort of, whatever the way that is for each individual, not everybody, it's not everybody who wants to come to a climate cafe and talk about it, but for some people, This is really in my way.Like I can't think about anything else. And so, yeah, I guess I don't think that it has to be taking like I guess the oxygen is already there in the, in the [00:40:00] metaphor you use, like sucking up all the oxygen, all the air in the room. It's like if, if you're sort of making sure that you've got your own oxygen supply and sort of however you can, and then you can kind of turn and be available and sort of let there be then air for other people to my hope is that that's That's that's how it works.Lily, do you have thoughts on that?Lilly: Yeah, I mean, I was, I just I feel like this question is so valuable and I I definitely don't feel like I have. The answer, or like we're perfect answers, and I just appreciate that it's yeah you bringing into the conversation I think, yeah, I agree with what you were saying Celeste about.We're so, you know, incapacitated or paralyzed by these feelings. We don't have much to give anyway. To racial justice efforts or to climate justice efforts so it does, [00:41:00] I do think that there's, there can be room for both room for making space for climate anxiety for those of us who live in these very protected privileged, you know, experienced so much privilege related to all of it.I mean, I think the thing that I was thinking about was you know, be making sure that this is part of the conversation and that we when we, you know, when we get to the point where we're kind of the wave has washed over us, and we're back in the place where we can recognize our agency. And, you know, this is helpful because we can We need to move out of helplessness, like those of us in positions with more access to resources, more access to wealth, mobility, those kind of things like we, we actually do have a lot that we can do.And it is our countries that are responsible for like the vast majority of emissions right if we're just talking about climate and so actually, We have, we need to work through our stuff to be able to then take accountability for [00:42:00] our , disproportionate role in how we got here and what needs to change.Like, and, and it is the like level of resource consumption and emissions use and those kinds of things that those of us that are white people with wealth and with cars, for example that need to, like, Figure out ways to shift our lifestyles and put, put pressure on our governments.Yeah. Use that corporation. Like we actually need to use, we, that we need to use our privilege and not be so paralyzed by, ah, it's overwhelming. And so, so we need to get, figure out a way to work through our stuff to be able to then show up in a meaningful and useful way, and then be ready to not be the ones that are saying, here's what we need to do, but ask what do we need to do, what do you need from us, what resources do you need from us , the big call is like in the, you know, I'm, I'm blown away and so moved and impressed by the youth climate movement.Right. And there's a lot there in that, you know, yeah. [00:43:00] It shouldn't just be them and let's all show up for them and like, you know, all of that. But you know, they've got their language clear in the kind of climate strike world around, like, listen to frontline communities, bring them to the table and do what they say.Stop talking over them. Stop having, you know, the U S and Canada be the leader of these meetings. Like let's bring the people That are directly impacted to the table and then ask them what they need and then resource them. So, I think, yeah, getting our, getting our feelings in order so that we can show up in that way is, is what we need to be doing.Elizabeth: Yeah, and seeing it in like, in through the lens of like racial justice as well is helpful because I think that like that's what a lot of people of color and Grassroots organizations that have been doing the racial justice work for decades have been saying, you know, to the white people who are just coming around to systemic racism is that you need to do this work on your own and [00:44:00] unlearn certain things without relying on People of color to teach you.And I think it, it sounds like it's very much the same. Like that's where these climate cafes and these processes that you can work through, other people who are also working through it and kind of that unlearning process and learning process and dealing it with yourself. It's apt.You know, the, the metaphor around the oxygen mask, I do think it is such a valuable way to think about it is like, that's how we need to, you know, we need to make sure that we are addressing ourselves first before we can even give back.So I have just like a couple more kind of wrapping up questions, but I guess my, my last one is like, what suggestions do you have for people who are really deep into the worry about climate change and what. you know, you know, there's climate cafes, but like, what are other resources that you think that they should seek out? And you've mentioned a few already, so it might, you know, we could just recap some of them.[00:45:00]Lilly: So yeah, I would, so what I would say to someone struggling first is like, you're not alone. And a lot of people are worried and don't be. Put off by the fact that when you do those Google searches, you don't find anything, right? Millions of other people are worried about this.And so you named Gen Dread, which I, is one of my favorite, like, book resources.Elizabeth: And which is also a book by Britt Wray. So it's a newsletter, Gen Dread, and then also the book Generation Dread by Britt Wray, which is, yeah, yeah, kind of like the book on climate, I think right now, yeah.Lilly: And, and, you know, particularly positionality-wise, right? Like, it's one that hits home for me because of her age, her like sort of generational place, her, she's also a white woman, she's Canadian, but has a similar level of like sort of privilege and access. As, as me and anyway, yeah, so, and then for parents, the [00:46:00] parenting and a changing climate book I cannot recommend that one enough.That one's really great. And Good Grief Network has a 10 step program that I haven't participated in or been trained in how to run it or anything, but I'm aware of their program and I've heard Britt Wray talks about having gone through one of their groups. I just follow them on Instagram and they just posted a lot of really useful things.And there is a burgeoning kind of growing. Network of what's called climate aware therapists that are not, I would say it's, it's not huge yet, but on, I think it's the climate psychology alliance of North America's website, you can find therapists in your area that are advertising themselves as being climate aware.So You know, aware and willing to work on this with you. But yeah, I will send you the Google doc that I have. It has a bunch of that stuff and a [00:47:00] few other things. Yeah. Thank you.Elizabeth: And is there anything else that we haven't talked about here today that you think is important to share?Lilly: I might've said this already, but like, I, one thing that I just feel like important is important to drive home with this conversation that I feel more and more clarity about all the time. Is that. There's, you know, the systems that are incentivized to not have us change what we're doing, right, like fossil fuel interests and corporations and capitalism and things like that are very interested in not having us feeling these feelings or aware that we are feeling these feelings and really interested in us trying to find solace when we're feeling uncomfortable or worried in buying things or in like continuing to engage in the exact systems that have gotten us to this point and will continue to make it [00:48:00] worse if we can't make change.And so, yeah, the power of having feelings and owning them, and Being willing to, to look at them and, and being brave enough, because I think one of you, you said that like you have a friend who's like, I can't think about it. I don't want to think about it. I can't think about it makes me too scared and like totally makes sense.And when we think about these things and we let ourself feel them, and we can be vulnerable with each other about our feelings about them and give that gives permission for someone else to then be vulnerable or feel the feelings that is what that is one of the things we need to do to fight against this.This effort that is continually in place to help to separate us from all of this.Elizabeth: I love that. I mean, that is, that is so true. Like, I don't think I'd ever thought about it in those terms that's like shopping is, there is like therapy, but, and that's like, yeah. And we're like, have this constant messaging that this will [00:49:00] make, this will make you feel better.And I'm so alone and all that. I mean, it's, you know, that is an example of everything that we experienced. It's like the negative. You know, parts of capitalism. And yeah, I'm going to be thinking about that the rest of the day.Celeste: Yeah, that's great, Lily. Thank you so much for that.It makes me think about how my son, my 14 year old, he has I feel like one way he's coping right now is he's been reading Thich Nhat Hanh books. He kept, he checks them out from the school library, like at his middle school. He came home.Elizabeth: I love your son. I don't know him, but like everything that you've said about him, I'm like.Celeste: He, he really is a, he really is a beautiful guy. He came home with a new Thich Nhat Hanh book this week from his school. And he said, my middle school library, they had to get this from mcDaniel's.Yeah. Like they had to, it wasn't even at his school, but they like did an interlibrary loan, so he could have the next one. And anyway, I feel like [00:50:00] just, just focusing on being able to be in the now, in the present, and, and to come together with other people. And, and neither of those things is, You know, buying something.Neither of those things is what movie am I going to watch? What, you know, you know, it's just about sort of being in the present, connecting with other people. I think those are just such powerful tools that we all, you know, have available to us. If we can, you know, hopefully we all have those available to us and we can help other people have those available.Elizabeth: Yeah, I love that. This has been really, really wonderful. Thank you both so much for taking the time to just chat about this. Cause I think for me, it's just like also my process is talking with other people about all elements around climate grief and And also the [00:51:00] things that we can do to kind of combat climate grief and climate change in general.And so I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with me today.Celeste: Thank you, Elizabeth. Yeah, this is a, I love this conversation. Thank you. Me too. Yeah. It was a great opportunity. Thank you for the work you're doing. Oh, thanks. I love the work you're doing.Elizabeth: What's the like next steps for the climate cafes for we're,Lilly: we're figuring it out.Yeah. I think. We, we ran two, we ran an in person one this spring and then a virtual one. And it's kind of been a learning opportunity. They both were great. And I don't know, I'm, I'm was, I'm definitely particularly think it's powerful to be in, in person with people. So that one was like, Ooh, that one. I really feel like was a wonderful pilot.And I think we're figuring out when we're going to offer them more. We were like, really want to, I think we're open to running more of them. [00:52:00] And it seems like the best, the thing, one learning piece that we have is it might be easiest to find groups of people that want to engage if we're kind of coming into an established group of folks that already have, you know, some connection to each other and are doing things regularly, we kind of just put it out there and You know, for anybody to come and it was, it was great, but I think the getting the word out and getting turnout we're still figuring out how to do that, but we don't have an active one planned yet.Thanks for reading Cramming for the Apocalypse! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe

Hi Friends!I’m trying something different with this week’s post! A lot of things, in fact. First, did email-receivers notice the new banner artwork?! My brilliant friend and incredible artist, Amanda Burnham, did such a great job taking what was in my head and putting it in art form and I just love how it turned out and that you all get to see her work each week!Second, this week’s post is an interview! And not only that, it is an audio interview. With all of the interviews I’ve been conducting for the book, I was inspired and encouraged by some folks to try my hand at a podcast/audio post format and I’m so happy that Alanna Kieffer was willing to be my inaugural audio issue/Cramming for the Apocalypse podcast guest. You can either listen to the 35-minute interview or read the full (somewhat edited for clarity) transcript below.Also, a disclaimer: The audio is okay in most parts, but I’m not an audio expert in the least, so some transitions/cuts are a little rough and my intro/outro audio is a bit tinny, so bear with me. As I learn more, refine my skills, and find the time to dive into learning about this stuff, I hope it’ll get better/more professional as we go on, but I know I’m among friends here and you’ll appreciate it nonetheless ;). In April 2022, I officially launched my research for this book project by taking a clamming class on the Oregon Coast with my friend, Lindsey. In advance of the class, I began to get nervous. It was a really rainy, cold spring in the PNW and I just pictured myself out there in the mud flats, soaking wet and miserable. It turned out to be anything but miserable. It was truly an incredible experience, and not just because it was resplendent and sunny. The fun and joy I felt were partially due to the instructor, Alanna Kieffer, who so very clearly had an outsized affection for the ocean and the creatures therein. Her enthusiasm was contagious. And as I approached the year anniversary of launching my immersive research, I thought I’d interview Alanna. And bonus, she agreed to be featured in my inaugural audio issue/podcast episode of Cramming for the Apocalypse.Elizabeth Doerr: Thank you so much for chatting with! Let’s start by telling me about yourself and your various roles.Alanna Kieffer: My name is Alanna Kieffer and I wear a lot of hats. But I'm a marine science educator as a whole. I've been working for Oregon seaweed for the past two years. So I'm farming dulse seaweed on the Oregon coast, but also pushing that into communities. So doing a lot of community outreach around seaweed and yeah, just educating people in that world, but on the side do a lot of intertidal for gene and just exploration on my own and have been pretty excited to get involved in that and like more of an educational pulling other people in as well. But yeah, longtime and marine science education.ED: Tell me a little bit about how you got to where you are today.AK: It's been a journey. I moved to Oregon about 10 years ago, me and my mom moved from the East Coast to Seaside where I finished high school. I knew forever that I wanted to get involved with marine biology so when we came out here, I immediately started working in intertidal systems. I really knew nothing about the ocean in general. And as a high schooler I was working at an environmental education program down at the base of Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach, which is really focused on protection through education. So in order to teach people about it, I had to learn everything I could, and I really cherish that I was getting this immediate hands-on experience. I wasn't doing anything in the world of academia. But I was in high school spending every day in the intertidal with ID books and with other people who had spent years in this ecosystem and really just learning from there. And I think that sparked my interested. I realized that no matter what I did in marine biology, I needed to be educating people and working on the communication side of things. So I went to OSU [Oregon State University] and studied marine biology. I went to Australia studied there, and just traveled around and saw different ocean ecosystems. They have warm water coral reefs, which we do not have. I went to Catalina Island, California, and spent two years teaching and working with kids there. It was like a marine science camp where kids would come over from school and do their week-long outdoor Ed camp. We were taking them snorkeling and kayaking and hiking and doing all this like really amazing outdoor adventure stuff it wasn't until COVID that they booted us off the island. So I didn't necessarily choose to come back to the Oregon Coast, but I came back to the Oregon coast. It just happened to be that this Seaweed Farm [Oregon Seaweed] was being built, which was like a very full-circle dream of mine that I never really expected to happen here in Oregon. I finished helping them build the farm and started working around seaweed. I guess I became this a seaweed salesperson, but it was really just education around seaweed and trying to teach people in the community how to use it, what it is , and why we should be using it. And then got involved with workshops through WildCraft Studios, which was also just really exciting. I really missed the group education stuff and was happy to jump right back into it. ED: Tell me a bit about the seaweed journey because one of the things that really stuck out to me when we took the class was how excited you are about seaweed. And I had never heard that seaweed was a potential superfood and could be a solution for sustainable farming and food growing. And so I just want to know where that energy comes from and what excites you about it?AK: I honestly don't know where it comes from, except that on Catalina Island I was surrounded by kelp forests. My play time in the ocean was diving through kelp. And just being fully immersed in that ecosystem. I think it's always funny because for people who are in the world of marine biology, you hear about seaweed farming going on. But I realized very quickly that people who are not in that world, it's different. People don't hear about it, nor do they know anything about it. So when I heard that it was going on here, it was through a fisherman who had no idea that I was remotely interested in this. He was kind of like, “This has been like a dream of yours? You know about seaweed farming?” Oregon Seaweed is the first farm that's popped up here, and it’s picking up steam around the country. I think I was first interested as someone who loves those ecosystems and loves seaweed, in our natural environment, but then to be able to work with it in an industry that's like trying to introduce the general public into it as a food source is also huge. My whole family works in the food service. So this is a whole other full circle deal where like, you know, my dad owned a restaurant, my mom is a food writer, my brother's now a chef. And so I grew up around food. And now I'm working in the food systems like through the ocean, which is just this whole other track. I just have a general enthusiasm toward anything in the ocean. And I think when it's things that are literally here and helping our planet, and feeding people I can see that there's excitement around it fuels me to keep teaching about it.ED: Let's talk about the ocean in general and intertidal systems where a lot of your work is involved. For those who aren't involved with the ocean or even have a sense of what an intertidal system is and what the significance of an intertidal system is, can you explain a little bit more? AK: So the intertidal system or zone in the ocean is the area between the tides. So when the tide goes out, it'll hit a certain low point. And when it comes back in it covers that whole area that was just uncovered. Anything that is in that zone is considered the intertidal zone. In Oregon, we have one of the most diverse intertidal ecosystems on the planet. Our Ocean is super nutrient-rich and we get really pretty big tidal swings. We have like a 10-foot tide change, which is pretty significant. Tides are different all around the world, but because our oceans are really nutrient-rich, it also fuels everything in this ecosystem. Oregon has these microclimates all over it. There's mountains everywhere, there's the coast, you get these different environmental conditions from one town to another. And that's kind of how I think of the intertidal zones. There are so many rocks and crevices and different tidal heights and you get all these different conditions, which allow a huge amount of organisms to settle in these different areas, these little pockets of the rocks. It's like a scavenger hunt every time you go into the intertidal zone, you see the big organisms, right? You see these giant green sea anatomies, you see crabs, you see the things that are easy to spot, but once you really start diving into it and stare at one little crevice for 10 minutes, you just see what you can find. It really brings to life how much is living in these environments, and that's like one rock of 300 miles of coastline that are all covered in different ecosystems. It's just a really diverse and unique area and pretty resilient in terms of what can grow there. Imagine 30-foot waves all winter long crashing into these rocks, and the fact that these animals are still there, it's just kind of mind-boggling.ED: That's so cool. I grew up in the Inland Northwest in Spokane. And so we didn't go to the coast that often. And now, anytime we go to the coast, I want to find a tide pool. My kid is obsessed because there's just so much there. Immediately you see there are things moving around in there, so it catches your eye pretty quickly.AK: Yeah, definitely. It's so colorful and there is movement. And there's a lot of sound. People are always shocked when they walk up to the rocks and realize that they can hear noises.ED: Totally. So, this whole project is about climate change and climate action. What are you seeing in these intertidal systems being affected by climate change? And what are actions that you think are essential in protecting these areas?AK: That’s a really good question. I've seen changes in only the 10 years that I've lived on the Oregon coast. A lot of the changes have been hard to pin specifically, but we have pretty strong ideas that they're all human-caused to some degree. I was here for the sea star wasting event that went on along the whole West Coast of America. And within our intertidal systems, we used to have hundreds of sea stars all over the rocks. And within a month, we lost like 90% of our sea star populations. And that is one of the bigger animals that you see in the tide pools. They're super colorful, so they're the thing everyone goes to see and picture when they think of Oregon's tide pools. That was a huge change. Universities all over have been monitoring what's going on after that, and how the intertidal systems are changing. I think it's like any organism when you think of changes going on on land. But all these animals have a way to deal with huge waves crashing on the rocks, sometimes things do get dislodged, and animals can come back. Ecosystems can kind of come back to what they were. But it's when these drastic changes are occurring with such small intervals in between them, that they can't really bounce back to the population that it was before something else has gone on to disrupt it again. So we're seeing similar patterns, but it's happening closer together. There's not as much time for these things to repopulate the areas that they were in. There's a lot of work done at OSU and Dr. Bruce Menge’s lab. If you don't know him, you should look him up. He’s like the grandfather of the intertidal systems. He has been doing work around here for like 50 years, if not more, and has seen and tracked those changes in all of his research. It's been pretty interesting to see. We're hopeful though. There's a lot of good stuff going on.ED: That's great. So, let’s talk about foraging, because that's how we met. You taught the clamming class that I took last April in 2022. And it was this beautiful resplendent day. I have to admit, it was such a rainy winter and early spring, I was like, oh my god, we're going to be out in the mud and pouring rain. However I think I would have had as much fun if it was raining anyway, but it helps that we woke up and it was beautiful, sunny weather. So can you tell me a little bit about the classes you teach? What is the intent of those classes? What are you hoping for attendees to participants to gain from the experience?AK: Yeah, so I do the class you took, the clamming and seaweed farming class. So it's convenient that our Oregon Seaweed farm is right next to this huge mud flat in Tillamook Bay, which is this hugely dense clamming area. So we go to the mud flats, and we do some clamming and then we walk over to the seaweed farm and you get a tour of the farm and can hear about the seaweed industry as a whole. And then I do a rocky intertidal foraging class, which is more focused on mussels and seaweeds and other crustaceans that you find in the rocks, so these are both ecosystems that are exposed during low tide. But because of the conditions, one is just mud and one is super rocky. You get totally different animals that live there. They’re two different focuses for foraging and education as a whole. I think with foraging workshops are really neat. For years before this, I've led a lot of just pure educational ocean workshops, and taken people into these ecosystems, but they’re not necessarily going home with things that you can cook and eat. I think with foraging and seeing all this wild food all around our coast, and really all around our state, really connects people to these areas more than I ever could have imagined. There are a lot of people who might not be interested in just a purely educational class, but they want to go home with something tangible that they can show off or use in the future. And that's where the foraging really comes into play. You can get hands-on, you can learn about what is safe and what is sustainable in this ecosystem, and what is okay to be taking home with you. And then finding ways to incorporate it into your diet. There are a lot of nutritional benefits around all these foods, but they're also just right here. They're abundant, and they're right in our backyards. I think our whole pandemic lockdown really influenced people to learn about where their food is coming from and get more involved with just being able to find food. Because [an increase in interest in nature classes] was definitely something that WildCraft mentioned to me.ED: What is something that you think is important for foragers to know before they go out? And what should they keep in mind when they're foraging?AK: Yeah, this is a good question. I think it's a fine line of having that attitude of “just go out there and figure it out on my own” after doing some research online. I think that is really valuable, obviously, when you can like go figure something out on your own. But I think around the ocean, there are a lot of safety things that I never really thought about when I moved here. The ocean is a crazy place. It's not super predictable. And I think with tides and with the safety like wandering through the rocky intertidal, there's a lot of sharp things, there are the waves, there is a lot of weather that we get that just isn't necessarily as conducive to foraging. With mushroom foraging, in which I don't really lead mushroom foraging workshops, there's the fear of finding the wrong mushroom. And that's kind of the thing you have to worry about. In the rocky intertidal, there are not really things that you're going to eat that can kill you, but there are really strict safety protocols that are nice to know. And there's algae bloom. Some things that you really have to be checking up on the day that you're about to forage. So it's just these small details that I think it is really valuable to go with somebody or at least really, really do your research before you go, and know the area before you're fully diving in headfirst to the intertidal systems.ED: And what about kind of the responsibility on foragers? One thing I found handy was the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife restrictions around having the cap on the number of clams we could forage. I mean, it's tricky. It's so tempting to just keep going, especially when you find these clusters of clams, and you're like, “this is amazing!” I'm just gonna keep putting them in my bucket, but it's handy to have that cap. But I think more generally speaking, it speaks to this notion that we should be responsible about the way we're foraging and how we're foraging. And so I'mcurious about that, generally speaking, and what are your thoughts about it?AK: Yeah, I think the biggest thing to say is that Oregon and the West Coast do a phenomenal job in terms of monitoring species populations, and having these numbers and these regulations in place that reflect the work that people do to get that population data. It's like somebody's life work to be collecting all those numbers and to make sure the numbers are sustainable. Like you're saying, it's really tempting to go into these places, and just take everything you can. My biggest example with this is, it's not even the clams, its mussels, because you're limited to 72 mussels, which is a huge amount because our mussel populations are not struggling, they're doing really well. They’re a super sustainable food to take. But never have I gone into the intertidal and needed to take 72 mussels. And this is something that I really stress in those classes. You all want to share this with friends. Sure, if you have like a big dinner party, take 72 mussels if you need them. I do this myself. Every time I'm out there harvesting things, in the back of my mind, I’m thinking about the amount of time it’s going to take to process the food that you take home with you. And that amount of time plus the fact that you have to do it within two days, seafood doesn't stay good forever in your fridge, you know, so you need to process or eat it within about two days. And so it often depends on what I'm doing that night or if I have plans the next day and what I even have the ability to process that day. So it's these little things to think about when you're out there. And I think for people who don't live at the coast, that's probably even more of a struggle because you're here and you think “I want to take as much as I can right now.” But really to put the time in your head of still being able to process it and use it right. Because food waste is still an issue. Just because there are a ton of mussels on the rocks doesn't mean you should just take them all and then let some of them go to waste. It’s really being intentional with what you're doing and what you're taking when you're out there. ED: Being someone who's not living on the coast, my friend Lindsey, who came with me and I kept saying, “it’s so tempting [to harvest more].” But really in the end, what she and I [harvested], we used the little ones to steam that night. And then [we discovered], it takes a lot to process the big ones, it's kind of a nerve-wracking experience. They're still alive and you have to cut into this live thing in order to kill it? AK: It really connects you with where your food is coming from. I think it's powerful.ED: It really does. I mean, it does. Having to actually process it yourself was really helpful for me and with the big cockle clams, especially because how big they are, it is kind of nerve-wracking. I think when you had shown us the first demonstration, the shell cracked and so it's big foot came out. I could not stop thinking about that when I was processing our clams. I was like “oh my god, this thing is alive.” And it brings a little bit more respect to the actual thing that you're processing because I got this here, and now I have to do right by it in some way. Yeah. So if attendees learn or gain one thing from your classes, what do you hope that would be?AK: I think it's a desire to want to continue protecting these ecosystems. So whether or not you live at the Coast, or you live in a city, you are directly and if not indirectly connected to these ecosystems. It could just be the food that you eat, but also, most of the oxygen we breathe is coming from seaweed in the ocean. I think if people know this, they're definitely getting behind what we can do to protect these ecosystems. But it's really just the small changes in your day-to-day life to not be using carbon or emitting carbon as much. It's really easy these days to get wrapped up in the doom and gloom of what might be going on in the world and feel pretty helpless. And I think just getting into these into the environment that you live in, and really experiencing what it's all about, and what it provides us with is pretty powerful to get you to make a small change.ED: What are some what are some of your favorite resources that you recommend to folks at resources and also like, ocean-related action steps that people like really practically can take?AK: I feel like seafood sustainability is such a multifaceted and complicated topic. But the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch is a great one if you like to eat seafood, but want to make sure that you're doing it in a way that's not completely harming our oceans and wild populations of fish. The Monterey Bay Seafood Watch will not only tell you species that are good to eat, but how they were harvested, or where in the world they were harvested, which can tell you a lot about practices. I also think just not being afraid to ask questions when you go out to eat if you're ordering seafood, wondering where that fish is coming from. I think that's huge. And then realizing that sometimes you just might not get to eat what you want, if you realize it's not really aligned with what you believe. I think and that's something I've been learning more and more about while working in food systems along our coast is the disconnect between where our food is coming from and where it's actually going. In Oregon, it's pretty astonishing how much of our seafood is exported and how much seafood we import. And it just doesn't make sense to my mind that we import 90% and we export 90%.ED: One thing that I've been thinking a lot about, especially with the foraging workshops is Indigenous cultural practices. I read Braiding Sweetgrass [by Robin Wall Kimmerer] right before the clamming class last year and so it was in my mind. And so many of these concepts of the responsible harvest and such were in my mind, also thinking about Indigenous practices and foraging and how it's so ingrained in so many Indigenous cultural traditions. I'm just curious if that's something that you engage with in your work on the coast or if you all especially at Oregon Seaweed have relationships with the tribes on the coastal tribes?AK: Yeah, I would love that. Right now we're still kind of new as a company and I have not had time to like focus on that, but I would love to connect with people out here. I read Braiding Sweetgrass and took a few classes in college about Indigenous Pacific Northwest tribes and learning the common misconception that went on for years that there weren't any people cultivating the land out here, that things were all just foraged for. And that was not correct. Things were definitely changed to improve growing conditions for a lot of species and just recently I’ve been diving back into that in the ocean world and how there were clam farms essentially. Not farms exactly, but people were building rock beds to bring clams to a specific area. And the rocks would encourage seaweed growth and all these other things. So it’s something I want to get into more and be able to have enough knowledge to start teaching about it more. ED: That's actually something that I think about. There's this common misconception with all wild spaces or “wild” in our minds that there were not populated by humans or stewarded by humans. Yet for, millennia, [stewardship of lands and oceans] was done in such a natural way that shows the [Indigenous] understanding of ecosystems and relationships with the land and oceans. There was intentionality around it. I'm doing a ton of learning about that, too. And that's what I loved about Braiding Sweetgrass, the little elements of that throughout that kind of helped shape the way I see wild places.AK: Yeah, I think the storytelling in that book is really something that hits a lot of people.ED: Yeah. Is there anything else that you think folks in this community would be interested in hearing about related to seaweed and oceans and protecting the oceans that we haven't talked about?AK: In my world of seaweed, it's been really apparent, at least working at farmer's markets selling seaweed to people, that people are kind of intimidated by these things that they don't know that much about. [I encourage people to] learn more about these products that we might not be so familiar with, from growing up in this culture. But knowing and realizing that in order for these big things in our world to change, we need to be willing to make small changes, right? So whether it's changing your diet, or just learning more about what you're eating, or about where things are coming from, really just making those connections to our environment, and how we're impacting them and the things that we're doing every day. Yeah, and if that means taking a foraging workshop and just getting out there and experiencing, then great. But if also reading more books and doing more research on things that help you be more sustainable and walk lightly. I’m so grateful to Alanna for taking the time to be my inaugural podcast guest. You can find her courses at www.shiftingtidesnw.com and you can follow her on Instagram at @shifting_tides_nw. You can also check out her seaweed farming work at www.oregonseaweed.com. Oregon Seaweed sells dulse seaweed on their website and at Farmer’s Markets around the state. Trust me, it is so delicious. Pairs quite well with clams :). Also, Alanna continues to teach classes with WildCraft Studios.Thanks for reading Cramming for the Apocalypse! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to Cramming for the Apocalypse at crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/subscribe