I Am Interchange: Recent Episodes
Tate Chamberlin
I Am Interchange is fostering curiosity, education, and empathy by exploring the controversial and the provocative.
Okay, think about the last tomato you ate. Not a good one. A regular one — grocery store, middle of winter, pale on the inside, kind of mealy. Doesn't really taste like anything.
That tomato traveled further than most people go on vacation. Picked green, somewhere warm, weeks before you saw it. Put in a room and gassed with ethylene so it would turn red on schedule, because red is what we reach for. And it was bred — over decades, deliberately — not to taste good but to survive the truck.
And the part that got me, when I first started paying attention to this stuff, is that nobody exactly chose that. There's no villain. It's just what you get when the whole system is built to move food cheap and far, and the person actually growing it has the least say of anyone in the chain.
That's the world Tate Chamberlin wanted to spend some time in. So he sat down with four people who've each, in their own way, made food their life's work — Katie Stebbins, Tim West, Paola DealMeida, and Sanah Baig.
They get into the stuff you'd expect. How you even fall into food activism in the first place — for most of them it started small, learning to cook, getting curious about where the thing on the plate actually came from. Food safety. The tomato supply chain, which is somehow more insane the closer you look. Why a small farmer basically cannot win against processing and subsidies, no matter how good they are at farming.
But the part I keep thinking about came later, when the conversation turned to the Farm Bill. Because most people hear "Farm Bill" and picture, you know, corn. Tractors. It's not that. It's school lunches. It's SNAP. It's the thing quietly deciding whether a kid eats. One of them makes the case that we've been calling it the wrong name this whole time — that it's really a community bill, and we should start treating it like one.
So that's today. How food got personal for these four, and what it would actually take to keep the local stuff alive.
Pull up a chair.
Here's something worth sitting with: the people who govern us mostly come from a narrow slice of the rest of us.
Lawyers, for one. In the United States, they fill more than half of Congress. But it's wider than any single profession — it's wealth. The system favors the people who already have. Running for office costs money. Holding office rewards money. And so the rules end up written, again and again, by people who were already winning. When a single class writes the operating system for an entire country, you get a country that can only run one kind of program.
Tate Chamberlin wanted to ask what the alternative even looks like. So he brought a few people together to find out.
Because democracy was supposed to be the thing that belonged to everyone. Rule by the people — all of them, not the few who could afford a seat at the table. But somewhere along the way it narrowed. The choices got fewer. Two parties. One acceptable range of disagreement. And underneath it, quietly, the thing nobody campaigns on — the monopoly of violence. A state that alone holds the right to use force, and uses it to keep the arrangement exactly as it is.
This conversation was recorded at Frontier Tower in San Francisco, at the Next Democracy Summit. Four people, four vantage points. Artur Py, from Ukraine, where the right to govern yourself is something people are fighting and dying to hold onto. Nicole Klau Ibarra, from Mexico, watching her own democracy bend under its own pressures. And Gage Olesen and Bruce McHenry, both based in the United States, both asking whether two parties and a settled status quo is really the best a free people can do.
What they're reaching for is hard to name but easy to feel. A world with room in it for more than one world. Many ways of living together, not one imposed on all the rest.
And the question that keeps surfacing — the one that outlasts any election: what kind of self-governance do we leave the people who come after us?
That's today.
Stay with us.
There's a word that keeps coming up when you talk to people who build software for a living. The word is fork.
To fork something means you take an existing codebase — someone else's rules — and you branch off. You make your own version. You run it your own way. And nobody can stop you.
We're at Frontier Tower in San Francisco. At the Next Democracy Summit.
Ruzgar Imski is a Playnet contributor exploring organizations as games and games as organizations. How might we play organizations into existence? And in so doing overcome the division between game designers and game players, rule-makers and rule-abiders, between legislators and citizens.
Kate Lee builds systems too. What if you forked a city ordinance? What if you forked a federal statute? If code is law, put it in a repository, let people propose changes. Real changes. Actual line edits, submitted by anyone, reviewed in public, merged or rejected with a record of why. And underneath all of that is a harder question she keeps returning to — who owns your identity. Not your passport. Your digital twin. The version of you accumulating in systems you've never seen, built from searches and purchases and patterns and memories you didn't consciously hand over. AI is storing that now. Learning from it. And the person it knows best might be you — but you have no access to what it remembers. No access to your own externalized memory.
Tate Chamberlin put them in a room together. Two people who build systems and still want to talk about what those systems are actually doing to governance, to identity, to the idea of sovereignty in a world where code writes code and AI inherits the keys.
The game has been running for a while now. Someone designed it. It's up to us to change it. Today, Ruzgar, Kate and I are on a quest to open-source society and democracy.
There's a moment. A specific moment when someone decides to stop waiting for permission.
Maybe it's quiet. Maybe nobody's watching. But something shifts — and the path they were supposed to take starts to look a lot less interesting than the one they're about to make up entirely.
Today, we're talking to two people who made that choice — in completely different directions, for completely different reasons, with the same kind of unshakeable commitment.
Benjamin Von Wong is an environmental activist and visual artist whose work is almost impossible to look away from. Giant, haunting installations built from plastic waste. Images that don't let you off the hook. His activism isn't about him — it never has been. It's about fighting for something so much larger than any one person that the work almost demands you forget who made it. He's trying to change systems. Actual systems. And he's using beauty to do it.
BLKBOK is a neoclassical pianist selling out concert halls and collaborating with some of the biggest names in music. Here's the thing though. Nobody taught him how to do any of it. No conservatory. No formal training. No one handing him a roadmap to the rooms he now walks into like he belongs there — because he does. He figured it out. All of it. And that self-taught, street-smart, stubbornly specific version of himself is exactly the thing that got him there. Choosing classical music when the world had a very different game in mind for him.
Two artists. Two completely different relationships to the word change. One fighting for the planet. One rewriting who gets to sit at the piano. And somehow, both asking the same question underneath it all — how do we show up and actually influence anything? Do we do it because someone is looking? Or do we do it anyway?
Here's the thing about the Amazon basin. There's a number scientists use when they talk about it — the number of species living there that we haven't discovered yet. And here's what's strange about that number: we don't know what it is. We can't know what it is. We only know it's enormous. That somewhere in that forest right now, there are creatures going about their lives, doing whatever it is they do — and not a single human being on earth knows their name.
Think about that for a second.
We are losing something we have never even met.
The Amazon produces its own weather. It talks to the ocean. Indigenous peoples have lived inside it, and with it, for thousands of years — and they will tell you, if you ask them, that the forest is worth more standing than cut. That it is not a resource waiting to be used. That it is the resource. That it is the economy — if only we could learn to see it that way.
We think we know the Amazon. We've seen the pictures. We've heard the statistics. But we don't know it. Not really.
Today on the show — what happens when a forest reaches a tipping point. What wildlife monitoring and illegal human activity in one of the most remote places on earth are actually telling us. And what a shift toward a bio-economy might mean for the future of a place that is, in some ways, the future of everything.
I'm Tate Chamberlin. My guests today are Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri and Paola de Almeida.
Stay with us.
Water doesn't begin at the tap. It begins in the dark—underground, in aquifers older than memory. As snow in mountain air. As vapor. As storm. Something that refuses to stay still. By the time it reaches us, it has already lived many lives.
There's a saying in the West: whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting. A line that carries history inside it—compacts, canals, courtrooms. Water hasn't always been political. For most of human history, it simply existed. But today, especially across the western United States, it often is.
This episode begins in the Arizona desert, at Arcosanti.
In 1970, architect Paolo Soleri and The Cosanti Foundation began building this place in central Arizona. The idea was arcology—architecture shaped by ecology. A community trying to imagine living with the land instead of against it.
Curved concrete rises from the desert. Light pours through open space. A place built on questions.
It was also the site of the HATCH Summit—artists, scientists, entrepreneurs, policymakers, storytellers. People trying to collaborate their way toward something more resilient.
Which makes it the right place to talk about water. Because water means different things at once.
For some, it's sacred. For others, it's infrastructure—reservoirs, pipelines, allocations and rights. In the western United States, those rights often follow a simple rule: first come, first served. Use it—or lose it.
That logic shaped rivers like the Colorado—now feeding cities, farms, and reservoirs like Lake Powell. But reservoirs drop. Snowpack shrinks. And "management" starts to sound more like triage.
And this story doesn't stop in Arizona.
In the Andes, salt flats hold the lithium powering electric vehicles. In Bogotá, officials count the days in their reservoirs as the possibility of "Day Zero" enters the conversation.
Different places. Same question. What does it mean to live with water?
In this conversation, Tate chamberlin sits down with Michellsey Benally, David Purkey, and Joel Barnes to explore that question—what a water right really is, who decides, and what it might mean to remember that water was never just a resource in the first place.
Because water keeps moving. And the question is how we move with it.
This is the third episode. The last in a three-part series. My Place, My Sovereignty.
Recorded at the Eco Nomic Futures Summit. A gathering about systems—but really about people. About land. About new economies.
I'm Tate Chamberlin. In this episode, I'm joined by Ruben Hernandes and Miles Richardson.
The conversation starts with a simple idea that turns out not to be simple at all: knowing where you come from.
For some people, lineage is clear. Stories passed down. Names remembered. Teachings held—who we are, what we stand for, where we belong. That clarity is a kind of privilege.
From there, the story widens.
We talk about building Indigenous economies—not as theory, but as relationship. To people. To place. To the earth itself.
There's talk of sovereignty. Of sovereign wealth. Because economic activity matters. We all need it. But the system we're living inside now is built on something else—monetary capital. Scarcity. The idea that there's never enough.
What Indigenous communities offer is a different application altogether. An economy rooted in reciprocity. In looking after each other. In the understanding that we're all in this together.
And that idea scales up—to something much bigger. A world sense. A human challenge.
Because sovereignty, in the end, isn't just about control. It's about responsibility.
Stay with us.
This story starts at Arbor Day Farm in Nebraska City, Nebraska. At the HATCH Summit. A gathering about world-building and cultivating relationships—set in a town with a long memory, including its role in the Underground Railroad. And from there, it moves to music. To Gangstagrass.
They're Emmy-nominated. Billboard-charting. And they're also the soundtrack for Dispatch from the Heartland.
Hip hop and bluegrass sit together here— banjo and bars, rhythm and rhyme— without explanation. Just present.
Tate Chamberlin sat down with Gangstagrass— Dolio The Sleuth, B.E. Farrow, Rench, Sleevs, Danjo Whitener, and R-SON, the Voice of Rason.
There's a quote they have that keeps coming back: We all do better when we all do better. Can't get better than that.
That quote opens up a longer story. One that passes through blackface minstrelsy— an old form of Entertainment in the United States where white performers painted their faces black and acted out cruel, exaggerated versions of Black life, earning premium wages while doing it, taking work, money, and stages away from Black performers, turning real people into jokes and stereotypes.
Those images didn't stay on the stage. They moved into songs. Movies. Cartoons. Into culture.
This is a story about Music. About memory. About relationship. About Afrofuturism— not as escape, but as continuity. A future imagined with the past fully in frame.
This is episode two, recorded at Eco Nomic Futures in San Francisco. Not a conference exactly—more a meeting point. Where conversations crossed paths around food, land, economics, and what happens when systems lose their connection to life.
Tate Chamberlin is joined by Jacob Huhn and Warinkwi Flores. This episode is called BioCulture.
It's about systems—the ones we live inside now, and the ones that came before them. Indigenous economies were relational, not extractive. Land, food, and water weren't commodities. They were responsibilities. Those systems didn't fail. They were interrupted.
From there, the conversation moves into the present. Food as product. Life as data. Supply chains so long and familiar, they disappear. Corn becomes a way to see how meaning gets stripped as things move farther from their origins.
We talk about data, the rights of nature, and economies embedded within life—not separate from it. A reminder that the future isn't something we have to invent. It's something we already know how to return to.
Stay with us.
Today, we're somewhere that feels both familiar and overlooked at the same time—Arbor Day Farm in Nebraska City, Nebraska. The kind of place people call flyover country, a place many don't think twice about, even as the people who live here are quietly shaping a future the rest of us will eventually feel.
I'm Tate Chamberlin, talking with Jeff Yost, Chris Harris, and Huascar Medina—three voices who don't see the Heartland as an accident of birth, but a choice. A commitment. A belief that local decisions should be made… well, locally. By the people who actually walk these streets, and raise their kids here, and imagine what this place could become.
Because if you really want to understand a community, you don't just start with the data. You start with the people who see it up close—teachers, shop owners, artists, local organizers—the ones who understand the rhythms of a place in a way reports never quite catch. The people who can show you what a community is actually like, not just what it looks like on paper.
And right now, these towns—these counties—are in motion. Old systems giving way to new ones. A moment where risk tolerance suddenly matters. Where one wrong move can feel fatal. And the arts—the artists—help us inch forward anyway. They make us brave in ways spreadsheets never will.
There's also the quieter story: young people leaving for opportunities somewhere else, communities slowly thinning out, the talent and energy of a place drifting outward like smoke. And the equally powerful force coming behind it—the massive transfer of land and assets from one generation to the next, often to heirs who don't live here anymore. The early signs of a company-town future, unless something different takes hold.
And somewhere inside all of this—inside the questions about belonging and the future of work and what makes a place worth staying in—is the story we're following today. Not an invitation. A moment. A snapshot. A look at how the Heartland, by choice, is writing its next chapter in real time.
Turtle Island. Before there were countries—before anyone called this land the United States, or Canada, or Mexico—this was Turtle Island. A continent of nations, overlapping territories, trade routes stretching farther than modern highways, and relationships thousands of years old.
Today, that history is being carried forward by contemporary Indigenous leaders at Fort Mason—San Francisco's skyline in the backdrop, summit banners hanging over a conversation that reaches far beyond the city around it.
This is the First Nations Economic Compact.
You're in a conference room that usually sounds like quarterly forecasts, and suddenly Chief Redman is talking about an economic conversation older than all of that—older than the 1763 Royal Proclamation, older than colonial regulatory systems, older than the borders that now cut through nations whose trade routes once ran uninterrupted across the continent.
Long before GDP, First Nations had their own economic indicators: ecological balance, kinship networks, sustainable yields, inter-nation reciprocity. Systems the Doctrine of Discovery tried to erase. Systems that survived genocide, forced relocations, and treaties—signed, coerced, or never signed at all.
And yet: the nations remain. The economies remain. The knowledge remains.
Here, leaders are talking about restoring ancient trade corridors, sharing resources through ancestral law, and building a bio-economy centered on stewardship and community resilience. While modern governments argue over tariffs and trade wars, First Nations are putting forward something older and more future-ready: a sovereign economic compact drawn from traditional trade logic and built for today's global market.
"If someone doesn't want to deal with Canada or the United States… they can deal directly with First Nations," Chief Redman says. It isn't a request. It's a reminder.
Suddenly, this summit doesn't sound like policy talk—it sounds like nations dusting themselves off and reintroducing themselves. Not as stakeholders. Not as interest groups. But as governments.
This is what reconnection sounds like. What continuity sounds like. What a continent remembering itself sounds like.
Tate Chamberlin is with Chief Redman. Stay with us.
Music by Supaman
Every town has one. A school. A cafeteria. A lunch line. And somewhere in that line, a kid is staring down a plastic tray of food that — for millions — might be the only real meal they get that day.
We don't often think of it this way, but the school meal program is the largest restaurant chain in the United States. Seven billion meals a year. Forty million kids. Bigger than Subway. Bigger than McDonald's. Which makes it the biggest opportunity we have to change how we eat, how we grow food, and how we think about nourishment.
When we let the system run on the cheapest, most processed calories, the cost shows up in hospital bills, chronic illness, and communities that can't afford to be healthy. In one of the richest countries in the world, eating clean, non-toxic food has somehow become a luxury. But it shouldn't be. Healthy food should be a right.
So how did we get here? How did we build a system where the things that keep us healthy are the hardest to afford, while the things that make us sick are everywhere and cheap? Maybe it lives in the subsidies and programs meant to stabilize agriculture — systems that now keep us tied to old ideas of what food should look like.
Take cattle ranching: once the backbone of rural life, now caught between an industrial model that demands scale and a regenerative one that demands patience — and risk. Four companies control most of the meat market, while the people who tend the land have the least power to change it.
This episode, Tate Chamberlin talks with Nora Latorre, R.C. Carter, and Katie Stebbins — people working to shift the food system from the inside out. From how we feed our kids to how we nourish entire communities.
Because we are what we eat. And maybe the way we feed our children is the clearest reflection of the future we're willing to build.
Once upon a time, journalism started with a letter nailed to a tree—or a door. Some declaration, some warning, some truth someone wanted heard. And people would gather in the square to listen. News wasn't just information; it was a shared experience.
Then came the daily paper. Then the evening broadcast. News once a day—steady, dependable. Until it wasn't. Now it's constant. Twenty-four hours. Push notifications. Feeds that never stop refreshing. And somewhere in all that, we started to wonder—what's the difference between fact and opinion anymore? Between storytelling and spin?
In this episode, Tate Chamberlin talks with "Sleevs" Emily Messner, Joey Young, and Chris Denson about the evolution of journalism—from editorial boards and ad sales to freelancers, podcasts, and algorithms. How we depict what's true, and whether journalism can still sustain itself.
Because while we were putting this episode together, the press corps was literally packing up and leaving the Pentagon—a small headline that somehow says everything about where we are right now.
So… is there a future in journalism? Or do we have to make one, even if there isn't?
It's Dispatch from the Heartland, join us, won't you?
Here’s the thing about leaving. Sometimes you plan it for years — a better job, an education, a shot at something bigger. Other times it happens overnight. Governments fall. Food disappears. You run.
This episode of Dispatch from the Heartland is about human migration and displacement — one of the oldest patterns of our species. Moving for survival. Moving for hope. Moving because staying is no longer possible. It’s trauma. It’s hope. It’s a blank page.
In this episode, Tate Chamberlin sits down with Zohra Zori, Lucy Petroucheva, and Angela Eifert to talk about displacement, belonging, and the slow learning curve of new cultures. We’ll look at the mistakes, the forgiveness, and the “othering” that happens when you’re new. We’ll talk about refugee camps that stretch on for years, the difference between sustainability and dependence, and the unspoken emotions you carry when you leave everything behind.
This is a space for vulnerability. For beginning again. For understanding sovereignty even when choice has been stripped away. Because right now, families are uprooted. Cultures are colliding. Dreams are being carried across borders. And even in movement — even in loss — we hold on to the hope of a better life.
This is Dispatch from the Heartland. Join us, won’t you?
Washington, D.C. isn’t just a backdrop of monuments and marble. It’s a living, breathing city—home to more than 700,000 people who work, who raise kids, who build their lives here. Known for decades as Chocolate City, D.C. carries a proud history of Black culture and resilience. And yet, unlike every other city in the United States, its residents watch democracy without fully taking part in it.
They pay billions in federal taxes. They serve in the military. And still, they live under taxation without representation—the very injustice that fueled the Boston Tea Party and launched the American Revolution. More than two centuries later, the capital of the United States remains the only city where that founding demand is still denied.
And here’s the twist—this federal district is saturated with law enforcement. Dozens of agencies with arresting authority overlap in the same small space: the Metropolitan Police, Capitol Police, DEA, FBI, Secret Service, Park Police, Transit Police. And more recently, the National Guard and ICE. A city layered with power, yet stripped of the most basic power its people should hold—the right to representation in Congress.
This is Dispatch from the Heartland. In today’s episode, Ty Hobson Powell brings urgency and fire to the fight for DC statehood, making the case to Corbett Landes and Tammy Buckner that it’s time for the capital to finally become the 51st state. This isn’t just politics. It’s about identity, equality, and the unfinished promise of democracy in the United States.
We’re at Arbor Day Farm in Nebraska—join us, won’t you?"
A vacant lot, once overlooked and forgotten amid the rush of urban life, now pulses with vibrant life—flowers bloom where concrete once stood, vegetables sprout in neglected corners, and hope takes root in every crack. Yet, even these transformed spaces remain fragile—vulnerable to neglect, gentrification, or future development that could erase their resurgence. Similarly, rural farmland faces its own challenges—fragile soils, unpredictable weather, and the razor-thin margins that make farming a constant gamble. While innovative crops like perennial wheat show promise for creating more resilient and sustainable agriculture—reducing the need for replanting and conserving water—convincing farmers to take risks with such unproven techniques remains a significant hurdle. It’s a story of resilience—rooted in the earth and driven by community spirit—connecting urban renewal with rural perseverance in the shared pursuit of food security and sustainability.
Today, we’re sharing stories of communities confronting climate change, dismantling systemic barriers, and working tirelessly to ensure equitable access to healthy food—because food security is fundamental to a thriving society. Tate Chamberlin is joined by Nancy Williams, Founder of No More Empty Pots, Rachel Stroer, President of the Land Institute, and Miranda Miller Klugesherz, Executive Director of the Kansas Food Action Network. Together, we’ll reflect on personal experiences, systemic issues, and the collective power driving meaningful change.
We’re at Arbor Day Farms in Nebraska—join us, won’t you?
Beneath the surface of our planet’s icy crown lie stories of ancient times, fragile ecosystems, and communities woven into the glaciers’ icy embrace. These frozen giants—part of the cryosphere, the world’s vast frozen regions—are more than just stunning landscapes; they are vital sentinels of our climate’s health and the future of life on Earth. Yet, they are melting away before our eyes, especially the tropical glaciers that are vanishing faster than anyone expected. Today, Tate Chamberlin explores this icy world with Marcela Fernandez. We’ll uncover why glaciers and the cryosphere matter beyond their breathtaking beauty—why they are essential to life, culture, and the stability of our climate. And most importantly, what we can do—together—to ensure these vital ecosystems don’t disappear forever. It’s a story that doesn’t roar, but whispers—calling us to listen, to act. We’re at the World Oceans Summit in Nice, France. Join us, won’t you?
Imagine a city alive with stories—every corner whispering tales of dreams, struggles, and aspirations. It’s a place where communities don’t just live, but co-create their surroundings, weaving narratives into the very fabric of their environment. This is the essence of World Building—where storytelling becomes a force for transformation, turning visions into tangible realities. Today, we step into that world. Host, Tate Chamberlin, is joined by an incredible lineup of guests: visionary designer and storyteller Alex McDowell, urban innovator Meegan Elliot, systems thinker Mark Beam, artist and storyteller Ash Eliza Smith, and community builder Jenn Stein. Together, we’ll explore how world-building shapes not only our imagination but also the spaces we inhabit—and how, through collaboration and imagination, we can craft a future worth imagining.
It’s Dispatch from the Heartland. Join us, won’t you?
In this podcast, host Tate Chamberlin is joined by internationally acclaimed musician Teneia Sanders and Rabbi Joshua Lesser in discussion about queer community, pride, and the perspective necessary to walk, hand in hand, through an increasingly hostile political landscape with tenacity and grace. Join us, in full color.
In this episode, Tate Chamberlin hosts Charli Cooksey, Founder and CEO of WEPOWER. For Charli, her calling to uplift marginalized communities and reshape policy often faces systemic barriers. When passion alone isn’t enough, how do we keep moving forward amid oppressive forces? Charli stands at a crossroads, balancing the need for rest with her commitment to activism. This journey is transformative yet painful, reminding us that our dreams, even if deferred, hold power. Charli’s story is still unfolding—rich with potential and heartache—showing us we can create, shape our world, and keep dreaming.
In this episode, host Tate Chamberlin delves into the profound silence surrounding hope and the role of youth in activism. Joined by next-generation leaders Royce Mann, Andini Makosinski, and Addie Strom, they confront the challenges facing a generation navigating institutional constraints, environmental distress, and corporate influence. As they share their perspectives, we uncover the resilience and creativity that define today’s youth. Together, they redefine the "American Dream" and highlight the power of community and connection. Join us for an inspiring conversation that reveals how even in uncertainty, hope can ignite the spark of change.
Without the Amazon, the world as we know it ends. With no hyperbole, it is the churning epicenter of weather systems worldwide. It creates rain. It regulates temperature and humidity. It stores carbon dioxide. It regulates trade winds from the Atlantic Ocean and all the moisture they move. It releases around 20 billion tons of water into the atmosphere every single day. It supports ecosystems not found anywhere else on the planet. And we know next to nothing about most of what lives there. The XPRIZE Rainforest competition’s 2024 winner, Team Limelight, aims to change that, to show all of us that the planet’s greatest buried treasure is worth fighting for. And that the time to fight is now.
In this second installment of a two-part special Rio G20 series, host Tate Chamberlin interviews Team Limelight Rainforest’s Dr. Thomas Walla, Professor of Biology at Colorado Mesa University, and Outreach Robotics Cofounder Guillaume Charon, two among the many creative minds intent on tackling the world’s most pressing concerns in XPRIZE competitions around the globe. Here, they break through the Amazon’s canopy to shed light on the world’s most misunderstood treasure and all the sway it holds over the future of literally everything.
Each year at the G20 Summit, the “Group of 20” heads of state and international governments meet to address issues impacting global economies, politics, and environmental health. This year’s Summit in Rio de Janeiro hosted the XPRIZE Rainforest award ceremony, the culmination of a five-year competition that fueled teams helmed by the best and brightest minds from diverse backgrounds to innovate solutions to imminent concerns endangering the future of rainforest ecosystems and, by extension, the health of the very planet. Tune in to hear XPRIZE Executive Vice President of Biodiversity & Conservation Peter Houlihan describe the advances inspired by the competition, and the profound hope he’s found exploring the planet’s deepest hearts of darkness.
How does ecological data analysis inform financial policies that challenge the status quo to achieve United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, thereby addressing the climate crisis and saving the world as we know it? It’s a mix of positioning, ingenuity, investment, and good old-fashioned act-now-and-think-later responsiveness. Simple. For a more detailed accounting, check out the latest episode of the I Am Interchange podcast: Vibrant Data.
In this episode, Tate Chamberlin is joined by esteemed ecologist and data analyst Eric Berlow, venture capitalist and 2050 founder Marie Ekeland, and We Are Human managing partner and Katapult Ocean partner and chair Sindre Østgård. Together, they discuss the critical role of data analysis, fiscal policy, and entrepreneurial innovation in shaping the global response to the climate crisis. As deadlines for achieving these vital goals loom large and remain largely unmet, how do we bridge the gap in both knowledge and action to save a planet on the brink?
Wealthy nations, which have profited from exploitation and extraction, face a crucial moment to confront their histories. This recognition is vital for real change and challenges our assumptions about environment, race, religion, and wealth.
We must also consider the ethical implications of pressuring poorer nations, which have contributed the least to environmental issues, to transition to sustainability. Is it unjust to impose such burdens without adequate support, risking further inequality? A just transition from extractive practices to an inclusive ethos requires embracing responsibility for past actions and paving the way forward.
In this episode, Tate Chamberlin explores the nature of justice in the face of change with esteemed guests Ignacio Packer, executive director of Caux Initiatives of Change, Douglas Drummond, CEO of Weaving Waters Collective, and Boise State University president, Marlene Tromp. When all around is evolving, how does equitable accountability define a just path forward?
It’s not hard to be inspired by Candice Mama, even her voice burbles forth with the twinkling lyricism of joy. And that joy, that effervescence of self, has been hard won in a story capable of breaking even the soundest of hearts: the violent loss of her father at the hands of “the most evil man in the world.” If she can find a way to engage the world with hope — to literally walk herself out of consuming depression to forgive the man that murdered her father and champion his release from prisons both outward and in — then what, really, are the barriers for so many of us that cling to resentment, anger, and pasts that simply don’t serve? What are the real barriers to reconciliation?
As we approach 2026, marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, we find ourselves at a critical inflection point for democracy. The promise of equity demands that every policy and investment provide significant, sustained support to those most in need. This support must act as a bridge to creating an equitable economy, fostering an inclusive and compassionate society, and strengthening an accountable democracy. In this pivotal moment, we must ensure that our collective efforts address systemic inequalities, amplify marginalized voices, and create pathways for all individuals to thrive. Only by prioritizing these goals can we fulfill the foundational ideals of our nation and build a more just and resilient future. To that end, we are in need of a revolution of the soul.
In this podcast, and in partnership with HATCH, I Am Interchange founder Tate Chamberlin hosts distinguished author and Duke University history and public policy professor Nancy MacLean, PolicyLink president and CEO Michael McAfee, and RepresentUs co-founder and CEO Josh Lynn in a discussion of the messy truths about democracy and getting things done.
We often find ourselves looking to leaders and governments to direct solutions for our increasingly complex problems, but what better place to look than at a problem’s source. As Mexico City struggles under the yoke of a burgeoning population and ever-dwindling resources, particularly water, it may find itself at the forefront of innovation, of those sorts of grassroots efforts that eventually dictate structural change. In this case, residents of the city have long utilized creative strategies for water harvest, capture, and reuse, thereby reducing their reliance on government and supply chains. These everyday people simply looked at a problem and solved it, to the best of their ability, with what they had. They made resources last. And, in so doing, they fed into their own autonomy. They became proactivists in their lives, livelihoods, and the future of their beloved city.
In this podcast, Tate Chamberlin hosts Enrique Lomnitz, and Gabriela Vargas Romero as they reflect on the city’s resilient population, innovative regenerative solutions, and hope, in all its vibrant colors.
As young Tanzanians, in particular, struggle to define their way in the world, questions arise about the true nature of opportunity, and what to do when there is a lack. Does the mere existence of options suffice? Amidst political and social landscapes intent on the misleading adage to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” it seems the individual is to blame for failing to carpe their diem. But the process of how we become what we become — the choices and experiences that lead us from point a to z, beginning to end — is far more complicated than adages can convey. Opportunity resides in place as much as presence.
Here, at the African Regenerative Futures Summit in Zanzibar, Tanzania, Tate Chamberlin hosts Veronica Likunama, Dr. Stephanie Ndung’u, and Victor Muhagachi as they examine the nature of opportunity in a tiny country on the cusp of technological, social, and political evolution.
With its pristine beaches, Stone Town’s historic charm, and the vibrancy of the Masai people, Zanzibar is an island as alluring as it is elusive. It is here, after all, in this remote reach of the world so beautifully enveloped in nature that some of the greatest technological and digital advances aren’t just explored, they’re actualized. As compelling as it is promising, Zanzibar has found itself squarely on the threshold of open-source internet, the impact and implications of the teetering toddler that is AI, and digital sovereignty — data ownership and personal commodification on one’s own terms — emerging technologies that offer a glimpse of a fast-approaching future.
In this collaborative series between HATCH and Hub Culture’s The Chronicle Discussions, I Am Interchange founder Tate Chamberlin and groundbreaking digital innovators Hub Culture founding director Stan Stalnaker, machine learning engineer and Neurotech founder Kalebu Gwalugano, and ThreeFold founder and CEO Kristof De Spiegeleer explore the future of digital communities, Web 3, Machine Intelligence (MI), and all that humanity holds in the balance.
In the fight to save humanity—to literally reweave and rework the underpinnings of our social and structural fabric—how far is too far? Many speak of hope, of community coming together and manifesting viable, regenerative solution after solution, emboldening innovators to rise up from the ashes of failed systems, to actualize the brilliant phoenix of tomorrow after the long dark night of the last several decades’ descent into mindless consumerism and industrialized madness. But what if it’s all just more of the same—pipe dreams and pansies—baby steps limping humanity and all else ever so slowly to a sad, avoidable end. With one shot, a moonshot no less, in the balance, what if it’s not enough? What if it’s one step forward and two steps back, still, and until there are no more steps to be had?
Our host, Tate Chamberlin continues passage down the Nile with esteemed guests—social activists and fellow HATCHers Stephen Brooks, Melissa Jun Rowley, and Elias Cattan—we discuss what it means to change the world.
Hub Culture presents The Chronicle Discussions: Women Moving Markets. Where we champion the remarkable women driving change in our markets and communities. Join us as we share the inspiring stories of these trailblazers, exploring their journeys through the corporate and government landscape, their deep-rooted commitment to sustainability and climate action, and their innovative approach to retrofitting existing infrastructure. From uplifting the human spirit in their work to fostering a supportive network, we'll dive into the diverse facets of their impact and the collective power of women in shaping our world for the better. Tune in as we celebrate these extraordinary leaders and the interconnectedness that drives their success. With introduction by Edie Lush, Executive Editor of Hub Culture, in conversation with Katie Hoffman, co-founder of Regeneration.VC, Chante Harris, co-founder of Women of Color Collective in Sustainability, Olivia Dell, Founding Partner of Nova Impact and executive director of The Cometa Collective and VC investor, and Edwina Daher, Masters Candidate in Sustainability Management at Columbia University. Stan Stalnaker and Tate Chamberlin host live from the Future Mobility Hub during COP28 in Dubai. Presented by Hub Culture, in sync with Hatch A Better World.
Step into the world of active listening and environmental conservation as we take you on a journey through the rainforest, where cell phones connected to solar panels are used to detect the sound of chainsaws and thwart illegal logging. Join us as we explore the remarkable intersection of technology and nature, and contemplate the exciting future of headphones and their role in shaping our auditory experiences.
Hub Culture presents: The Chronicle Discussions: The Power of Listening with Topher White, Founder and Executive Chair of Rainforest Connection (RFCx), and Tim Degraye, Founder of Unity Headphones.
Stan Stalnaker and Tate Chamberlin host live from the Future Mobility Hub during COP28 in Dubai. Presented by Hub Culture, in sync with Hatch A Better World.
Deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon, and scattered sparsely across the Colombian and Peruvian borders, reside the Indigenous people of the Kichwa Nation. With more than 400 organized communities comprised of ayllus — groups of families — the Kichwa clans currently retain the rights to over 1,115,000 hard-won hectares in and around the rainforest. And they’re mere minor landowners.
After working and communing with Kichwa activist Leo Cerda for several days in his home village, host Tate Chamberlin and Cerda ventured back out of the verdant depths to meet with esteemed Amazon Watch founder and fellow activist Atossa Soltani at her hotel in the urban center of Quito to discuss the past, present, and future of the Amazon—the thrumming, thumping heart of the planet.
What does it mean to heal? Emotionally and mentally, as we begin to peel back the protective layers of denial, isolation, internalization, projection—like so many filters obscuring what is, what has happened, what lies beneath—we are left with something alien—raw, fragile, and often unconscionably unfamiliar. The process is painful. And physically? When a burn brings blisters, a bone breaks, cells become cancerous, from where does the healing come? What happens inside that cast? Under that bandage? How do we harness the body’s ability to heal? Direct it where we want it to go? Supercharge it?
Here, I sit down with acclaimed stem cell researcher and scientist Christian Drapaeu and Philip Robinson, a licensed clinical social worker pioneering collaborative mental health care systems for all, to explore the potentialities and potholes inherent to healing, in all its forms and facets.
Many would be surprised to realize that women only secured the right to vote in this country a little over a century ago, and that, perhaps tellingly, they began attending institutions of higher learning in remarkable numbers at about the same time. The female presence in business is further still in its infancy. Though women have outnumbered men in colleges and universities across the U.S. since the mid-90s, they remain an underrepresented minority in the workplace, particularly in positions and industries synonymous with success. But why? Is the problem merely timing? Is it men? Are the patriarchal systems and structures that have defined this nation simply intent on retaining that power, and intelligent in their methods of ensuring it? Or is it more complicated than that?
Here, on this journey through Egypt — guided by the wisdom and waters of the Nile — host Tate Chamberlin brings fellow HATCHers Meredith Marder, Catherine Carlton, and Kimberly Bryant together to share the perspectives and passions that have shaped their respective work as women in business, and their intentions for the generations of trailblazers that will follow in their footsteps.
What gives rise to joy? To hope? What of meaning? And reconciliation? Many might espouse some presumed inherent worthiness of work—a legacy of things getting done—in defining a life well lived. Others might speak of the importance of family, of intimate connection, of love as all you need. In this, context is important. Not only the context of the here and now, but that of the before—what preceded the now that has shaped both present and future perspectives. Entrepreneur, waste reduction advocate, and environmentalist Pashon Murray’s perspective is defined by her personal experiences growing up in Texas; by the roots of her race, which calls back, ironically, to the cradle of humanity through which she now floats, one from which her people were ripped, as if from a mother’s bosom, so many generations ago; by her family’s history in Mississippi, in Louisiana, in the slaveholding South. Fast friend Sara Andrews, regenerative agriculture aficionado and founder of Bumbleroot Foods, is likewise shaped both by a rural Montana farm steeped in tragedy and grounded appreciation for the earth, and an unfortunate legacy of slave ownership in that selfsame Louisiana county. And they are both firmly entrenched in the feminine, in the sensitive undercurrent and vital emotional presence that offers power, and pain. Here, while aboard a boat on their last day on the Nile, host Tate Chamberlin and fellow HATCHers Pashon Murray and Sara Andrews share of their experiences in the realm of regeneration, both without and within, whilst sipping from the deep dark dregs of generational trauma. And healing.
Few people are untouched by the humble power of music. When we’re in the depths of grief or the quietude of mid-winter blues, little soothes—provides the same solitary comfort and seen-ness—as concisely as Nina Simone’s throaty crooning or Yo-Yo Ma’s haunting cello suites. We employ music to help us focus, to energize movement, to coax us to sleep. A good soundtrack, one that augments rather than detracts, is implicit in a successful film, offering an artistic interpretation of both the director’s vision and the screenwriter’s story. Playlists define parties — whether intimate dinner gatherings or all-night raves — with intentionality and grace, coaxing community through a nuanced alchemy of harmony, dissonance, rhythm, and frissons of indefinable energy. Music is everywhere, in the mundane trappings of daily life, the wild grace of nature, the amalgamation of creativity and emotion in art.
Here, host Tate Chamberlin and esteemed public speaker, musician, and social activist Jurgis Didziulis talk about their recent work at the United Nations COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, the windy roads intrinsic to seeking self and cultivating community, and the harmony in, and within, it all.
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Photo by Yarrow Kraner
On the cusp of a new moon, a group of HATCHers — seekers,
adventurers, and innovators — took a trip down the Nile in search of paths both into the heart of some age-worn darkness and outward beyond the confines of their modern vernacular. They found a way forward by looking back, way back, to a time that holds more technological, spiritual, and social curiosities than answers. In this place, floating down the spine of the earth through Egypt, the mother’s belly, they embraced the divine feminine and all that she whispered of joy, of power, of emotion, of hope. Here, host Tate Chamberlin and guests Annie-Laure Fernandez and Abdelmoety Elbhrewy revisit that trip down the Nile, through the cradle
of humanity, and into an introspective realm of head and heart, one that marries the stars above to the dirt below, the male to the female, the East to the West, the indelible past to the ineffable future that is destined to repeat it.
It often feels impossible. As the masses become increasingly aware of corruption and active manipulation throughout financial, political, and infrastructural systems, answers remain few and far between. How do you challenge the financial giants — institutions woven into the very fabric of our society — when they have all the tools to ensure their future success, in a game that is anything but fair?
But what if you could decipher the rules? Arm yourself with the very same arsenal? Learn the language of power and wield it to exert change. Lio Mondano envisions an empowered future defined by just that: A world in which “We the People” finally have a seat at the table, and we won’t be placated with crumbs. Here, he and host Tate Chamberlin explore these realms of possibility in what might very well be our answer to this brave new world.
Oxford defines decentralization as “the transfer of control of an activity or organization to several local offices or authorities rather than one single one.” Essentially, decentralization dethrones the few to empower the many, in arenas ranging from technology to politics to social reform. With diverse individuals and entities collaborating to determine the best approach and interventions to address the range of needs, problems, and structural inevitables, the systems created reflect the distinct physical, social, cultural, and political spheres in which they exist.
In this episode, Tate Chamberlin hosts U.S. Navy veteran and regenerative agriculture advocate Latham Turner, HATCH board member and co-founder of the Care Collective, MyVillage, and Off-Grid Electric Erica Mackey, and technologist and marketer for Unlock Protocol Christopher Carfi in a discussion regarding decentralization and its local and global impact on systems change.
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What do we mean when we talk about systems change? And what systems do we seek to change? Systems change seeks to identify the underlying cause of social, economic, environmental, political, and cultural problems by uncovering the root factors — beliefs, structures, policies, and perspectives — that keep them in place. And in power. Much like integrated medicine, it’s a holistic approach that addresses the disease, rather than the symptoms. Once dysfunctional systems are identified and dismantled, activists and community collaborators build diverse, resilient social, political, and environmental systems to take their place. In this episode, Tate Chamberlin hosts John Kania, executive director of Collective Change Lab; David Purkey, Latin American regional director at the Stockholm Environmental Institute; and San Rahi, executive vice president for Global Brand Innovation/Sid Lee as they discuss the complexity of transformative systems change, an urgent global agenda, and how love may, in fact, be all we need.
In this episode our host, Tate Chamberlin hosts Tony Cho, CEO and founder of Metro 1, an innovative real estate firm developing inclusive, equitable communities and sustainable cities in South Florida and beyond; Stan Stalnaker, Stan Stalnaker, social globalization expert and founder and chief strategy officer of Hub Culture, a collaborative exchange platform; and acclaimed economist, speaker, author, moderator, and Replenish Earth CEO, Dr. Tia Kansara. Here, they imagine the future of the planet — of its inhabitants, global economies, diverse cities, and environments — through a regenerative lens. And that future is bright with hope.
In this episode, our host Tate Chamberlin hosts climate activist and SDG advocate Marc Buckley at the 27th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP27) in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. One of the first climate speakers trained by Al Gore, Buckley seeks to “empower billions of global citizens to live an adaptive lifestyle of health and sustainability,” actively working toward systems reform driven by accountability, optimism, and hope. Here, he discusses the regenerative model primed to replace our dystopian reality with a utopian vision well within our grasp.
In this episode, our host Tate Chamberlin is with Karoline Zizka, Florian Fournier, and Fernando del Sol of FreeFlow, a global movement to empower the people with sustainable access to complementary education, internet, and currencies (banking) for less than a dollar per month through an open-source, peer-to-peer, decentralized Internet infrastructure: ThreeFold’s Web 4 stateless and lightweight Zero-OS.
If you haven’t listened to our last episode: The Internet of Internets, We'd recommend starting there. This chapter is essentially what the world could look like on top of decentralized internet infrastructure.
We’re in Egypt. Join us, won’t you?
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Cover Art by MidJourney AI
In this episode, Tate Chamberlin hosts Kristof de Spiegeleer and Sabrina Sadik of ThreeFold, a growing global partnership intent on building “an open-source, peer-to-peer Internet infrastructure that removes all forms of centralization from the global IT systems.” Coined the “People’s Internet,” ThreeFold’s Web 4 stateless and lightweight Zero-OS has the capacity to revolutionize the Internet as we know it, reverting the tool to its original intention and iteration, taking power and revenue back from the chosen few and redistributing it to the many, and ensuring that your data – your “digital twin” – remains within your care and, ultimately, your control.
In this episode, Tate Chamberlin hosts Kristof de Spiegeleer and Sabrina Sadik of ThreeFold, a growing global partnership intent on building “an open-source, peer-to-peer Internet infrastructure that removes all forms of centralization from the global IT systems.” Coined the “People’s Internet,” ThreeFold’s Web 4 stateless and lightweight Zero-OS has the capacity to revolutionize the Internet as we know it, reverting the tool to its original intention and iteration, taking power and revenue back from the chosen few and redistributing it to the many, and ensuring that your data – your “digital twin” – remains within your care and, ultimately, your control.
In this podcast, Our Host Tate Chamberlin is joined by Marcus Eriksen, scientist, and co-founder of The 5 Gyres Institute, “a leader in the global movement against plastic pollution.” Eriksen and his wife, 5 Gyres co-founder Anna Cummins, have manned the Institute’s helm since 2009, leading 19 expeditions throughout the world’s waters with scientists, stakeholders, and innovators researching the detrimental reach and impact of plastics and inspiring change. Here, Eriksen discusses the true nature of the plastics beast and the work of dismantling the systems and misconceptions that have allowed its reign.
In this podcast, Our Host Tate Chamberlin is joined by Marcus Eriksen, scientist, and co-founder of The 5 Gyres Institute, “a leader in the global movement against plastic pollution.” Eriksen and his wife, 5 Gyres co-founder Anna Cummins, have manned the Institute’s helm since 2009, leading 19 expeditions throughout the world’s waters with scientists, stakeholders, and innovators researching the detrimental reach and impact of plastics and inspiring change. Here, Eriksen discusses the true nature of the plastics beast and the work of dismantling the systems and misconceptions that have allowed its reign.
In this episode, our host Tate Chamberlin is joined by Olympian, facilitator, and community organizer Pamphinette Buisa with HATCH NextGen activists and students Olivia Bulis and Ruby Jenni in reflections on diversity, decolonization, systems change, and why empowering youth may be the first step toward a brighter future for all.
In this podcast, our host Tate Chamberlin is joined by Dr. Hakeem Oluseyi, Cindy Chin, and Elyse Klaidman in a discussion examining the good, the bad, and the ugly of our current education systems and innovative approaches to STEAM explorations, both in and out of school. Dr. Oluseyi is a renowned astrophysicist, STEM educator, author, and inventor. Royal Society of Arts Fellow Cindy Chin is a NASA datanaut and the co-founder of CLIPr, a revolutionary development that “uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to create searchable recorded meeting recaps and actionable insights to drive desired outcomes in a fraction of the time.” And, artist and educator Elyse Klaidman is the CEO and co-founder of X in a Box, an online platform that partners with innovative companies to develop “world-class lessons that connect the classroom to the real world.”
In this podcast, our host Tate Chamberlin discusses the wealth gap and its impact on BIPOC communities and national economic prosperity with esteemed HATCH Montana Lab guests Otho E. Kerr III, Andre M. Perry, and Renay Loper. Otho Kerr, Director of Strategic Partnerships and Community Impact Investing at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, works to solve crucial environmental, social, and financial problems by advising investments in innovation and equity, moving money to makers. Senior fellow at Brookings Metro, Andre Perry is the author of Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities and the landmark 2018 Brookings Institution report, “The Devaluation of Assets in Black Neighborhoods.” He is a nationally renowned analyst of race, education, and inequality. Impact Strategist Renay Loper is the Vice President of Program Innovation at Pyxera Global, an organization working to develop collaborative partnerships that put people at the center of public, private, and social interests to solve complex global challenges.
In this podcast, our host Tate Chamberlin is joined by Ryland Engelhart — co-founder and executive director of Kiss the Ground and producer of the September 2020 film by the same name — for a conversation about his HATCH accelerator lab, regenerative agriculture, the 2023 Farm Bill and Engelhart’s multi-pronged mission to help save the planet. Next year, the 2023 Farm Bill — a package of legislation passed once every five years that outlines agricultural parameters around farming and food production — will once again define our path forward. Or back. Engelhart and many like him are particularly passionate about engaging public momentum around the bill because its reverberations have the power to revolutionize farming and food in America on a regenerative, sustainable platform, or to seal the fate of the planet and all the species reliant upon it. Co-creator of the documentary film May I Be Frank and co-owner of the groundbreaking Cafe Gratitude and Gracias Madre plant-based restaurants, Engelhart and his family live in Fillmore, California where they put intention into practice on their own 17-acre regenerative organic farm.
In this podcast, our host Tate Chamberlin reimagines philanthropy with HATCH Rethinking Philanthropy lab facilitator Ada Williams Prince and esteemed lab guests, Asiaha Butler and Kimberly Bryant. Ada Williams Prince is the senior advisor for program strategy and investment at Pivotal Ventures, where she works to accelerate positive social programming and evolution, particularly in the areas of adolescent mental health and empowerment and access for women and girls of color. Former electrical engineer and current founder and CEO of Black Girls CODE, a non-profit that introduces girls of color to technology and computer science, Kimberly Bryant has grown her grassroots initiative since 2011 to reach over 30,000 young women worldwide. And Asiaha Butler, co-founder and CEO of the Resident Association of Greater Englewood or R.A.G.E. in Chicago, works to reinvigorate the greater Englewood neighborhood by mobilizing “residents and resources to force a change in the community.” Through the voices and experiences of these commanding women of color, this podcast provides a glimpse of the struggle, the passion, and the power behind change and its makers.
I’m Tate Chamberlin, and in this podcast, I discuss the future of education with HATCH education lab coordinator, President Philomena Mantella of Grand Valley State University, and esteemed lab guests, Ty Hobson-Powell, and Zineb Mouhyi. President of Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan, Philly Mantella brings 30 years of higher education experience to both her university role and her work transforming inter-institutional collaborations and designing partnerships for diversity in learning.
The Future of Education HATCH lab was centered around accelerating Mantella’s passion project REP4 (or rapid education prototyping), an alliance of six higher education founding partners working together to transform the education system into a student/learning-centered model. Lab invitee, child prodigy, and founder of Concerned Citizens Demanding Change, Inc., Ty Hobson-Powell joins the discussion as a lifelong activist and advocate intent on disrupting systems and structures that no longer serve the global community.
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How does a nation reconcile a heinous history of colonialism, slavery, murder, rape, and thievery to itself, let alone the generations that have sprung forth from those it harmed? There are fair arguments for reparations. There are equally persuasive challenges to make the past just that and to come together as a global community of differently colored, shaped, and sized Homo sapiens stumbling through existence with good intentions, but a particular aptitude for making trouble. Humanity has, after all, a rather unadulterated history of exploration and colonization, regardless of origin, ethnicity, and religion; this isn’t American-made.
On the contrary, there are a host of social, political, ethnologic, economic, and sexist structures and constructs in place to ensure that this manor of degradation, exploitation, and annihilation of the “other” continues. How does humanity take down what was, address what is, and build anew?
I’m Tate Chamberlin and in this podcast, myself and a panel of esteemed guests including, business owner Billy McWilliams, indigenous political activist Terry Bradley, indigenous documentary filmmaker Ivy MacDonald, and libertarian entrepreneur Kyle Mack discuss America’s legacy of oppression and genocide, globalization versus tribalism, reconciliation, perspective, and the work needed to ensure a collective future that does not repeat the past.
Indigenous activist and documentary filmmaker Ivy MacDonald is a study in straddling multiple worlds, marrying sometimes contrary identities to create one "beautiful Blackfeet bitch." Born on the Blackfeet Reservation in Browning, Montana, Ivy is defined by a home as much about place as people. And, while her identification with the LGBTQ community would presumably further fracture an identity already enmeshed in the space between conflicting perspectives, she owns her voice and the range of presence and purpose she embodies as a powerful queer indigenous woman in a world intent on marginalization.
As co-founder of the Bozeman Tea Party, Henry Kriegel is no stranger to political activism or the controversy that can surround it. Born of eastern European Jewish emigrant parents who fled post-WWII Germany with their lives and little else, Kriegel is a first-generation American and a firm believer in the freedoms this country promises, providing some critiques of the governmental bodies sworn to protect them.
This interview was conducted in October 2020, over a year ago. While circumstances and conditions changed significantly since then, the issues and point-of-view shared are still relevant. Additionally, the views expressed by Mr. Kriegel are his own and not necessarily reflective of any organization with which he has an affiliation.
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Indigenous activist Terry Bradley has his hands and heart in a lot of pots. Whether he's advocating for the LGBTQ community, igniting a passion for the democratic process with Forward Montana, or pinpointing colonizers' roles in the desecration of "the other" and their responsibilities going forward, Bradley has a lot to say and it's not all met with an accepting acquiescence. While he challenges whether we can make America great again, he argues that we have the capacity to achieve that greatness for the very first time – and that it's worth the fight.
In this podcast, Interchange Founder Tate Chamberlin and Terry Bradley discuss identity, colonization, the challenge of tribal reconciliation, and hope on the horizon.
Photos by Ben Johnson
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What began for Billy McWilliams as a simple move to follow family, ended halfway across the world in a small southwest Montana town. Since his relocation with twin brother Robert decades ago, Billy has worn many hats, the most fitting of which as the owner of Erotique, an adult boutique in the downtown area. Meager beginnings in the late '80s as the store manager ignited Billy's passion for sexual health, empowerment, and advocacy. Through a range of applications and arenas – from providing HIV outreach and awareness during the height of the AIDS epidemic to inviting MSU's incoming freshman (and their blushing parents) to embrace their sexual identities and independence – Billy has become a warm example to an ever-evolving Bozeman demographic of what is possible when inclusivity and compassion drive action. And now, he's set his sights on a bit wider circle of influence through the Great American Orgasm. Billy's newest altruistic venture is a simple answer to Trump-era divisiveness and COVID-induced tension: a wave of pint-sized vibrators sweeping the nation and providing a whole lot of sexual healing.
What happens when a tall drink of water, a self-motivated mom to the masses, and a passionate walking dick joke get together? Unparalleled improvisation, challenging classes, and a comic community defined by laughter.
Well, that is, in any time other than the present. When Last Best Comedy founders and veteran improv artists Annie and Levin O'Conner and Molly Hannan banded together to develop a performance and training venue in early 2020, the last thing they expected was that contagious laughter would be the end of comedy.
Just days before they were due to sign the lease on their new space, the country shut down in the wake of rising numbers and a pandemic that has proven to be the cruelest and most persistent of hecklers.
Successful artist and children's book author Eddie Hemingway is no stranger to the limelight, but he's never felt at home there. As the son of Valerie Danby-Smith and Gregory Hemingway – and grandson of renowned author Ernest Hemingway – Eddie's relatively solitary private catholic school upbringing in New York segued seamlessly into a fine arts degree at Rhode Island School of Design and solidified a creative, empathic introvert. While Eddie actively cultivates personal space and values the introspection it affords in both his personal and professional spheres, his compassion, curiosity, gentle humor, perceptiveness, and love of intimate connection are equally defining.
In this podcast, Interchange Founder Tate Chamberlin delves into Eddie Hemingway's consciously intentional life: from the challenges of his past and successes of his present works, and new release, Pigeon and Cat.
Cover photo by Ben Johnson
Fast friends Conrad Anker and Wilmot Collins couldn’t have less in common. Or so it seems. Anker is a world-renowned mountaineer, author, and activist; Liberian refugee and US Navy Reserve veteran Wilmot Collins is the mayor of Helena, Montana. But their respective covers hide pages of experience oddly in concert. They have both led incredible lives. They both know and have been defined by heart-wrenching loss. They both feel an intrinsic responsibility to engage and give back. And they both know the power of forgiveness and the work and humility necessary for lasting reconciliation.
In this multimedia podcast, Interchange Founder Tate Chamberlin and guests Wilmot Collins and Conrad Anker delve into the complexities of personal, social, and cultural reconciliation.
Photos by: Ben Johnson
Montana State University (MSU) professor Dr. David Sands was no novice to the challenges of plant pathology even before he began an education that would define him as a leader in the field. A Silent Generation farm kid, he spent his childhood rooted in the land. Now, in a roundabout manner with detours through the arts, education and conservation, Sands' daughter Claire has found herself equally ensconced in a green vision defined as much by growth and life, as death. Their mutual enemy? An innocuous looking little weed called striga, which devastates crops and food security on 40 million farms throughout Africa. Six years ago, Dave and Claire began the Toothpick Project, an inter-cultural and -generational endeavor to fight fire with fire and help smallholder African farmers take their farms back from striga's stranglehold with an equally innocuous looking little fungus.
In this podcast, Interchange Founder Tate Chamberlin, Professor David Sands and his daughter Claire Sands Baker discuss plant pathology, The Toothpick Project and a brave new world of agricultural biodiversity.
Little did Yarrow Kraner know, as he submitted to yet another ass-kicking in a series thereof, that those same bullies would ignite a distant passion for social justice, for the power of voice, and for the change felt around the world. Meager beginnings with his superhero mother fostered a tenacious, insightful boy that found the meaning of empathy in the fight for self. In 2003, after a string of entrepreneurial and directorial successes, Kraner launched HATCH, “a network of influencers accelerating progress on solutions for global challenges.” Through its many iterations, HATCH has been an ever-evolving conduit for creativity, social activism, volunteerism, innovation, and that global change Kraner had envisioned decades earlier.
In this podcast, Interchange Founder Tate Chamberlin and guest Yarrow Kraner discuss the pandemic’s implications and possibilities for industry, the environment, and the minds finding hope in the spaces between what was, what is and what might become.
Photos by Ben Johnson
The United States is on the brink of the largest wealth transfer in its history as aging boomers and traditionalists pass along financial assets estimated in excess of $68 trillion to their progeny. Further polarizing class and reinforcing unparalleled income inequality, this inheritance is expected to solidify millennials as the richest generation in human history. But perhaps only a few among them. As economists identify possible outcomes and wonder at the future ahead, skeptics can't help but ask how much of an impact the transition can make if it is only from a handful of wealthy individuals to an even smaller one?
And what of the world the youth inherits, one arguably on the brink of an unprecedented existential overhaul? How will Millennials, Gen Z, and those to come thereafter respect the wisdom of past generations, while learning from their mistakes? Now that they know better, can they do better? Will anything change? Or will money continue to define and divine the course of America's future, at least for those who have it?
In this podcast, I Am Interchange founder Tate Chamberlin and generationally diverse guests Kyle Mack, Sara Blessing, Sheyne Lieber, Pete Strom, and Susan Carstensen examine wealth, climate, society, politics, and the ties that inextricably bind generations to each other the future of life as we know it.
Cover photo by Ben Johnson
“We’re in ripe territory for big shifts in the next 50 years,” remarks notable local entrepreneur Pete Strom, “and it could go anywhere.” As the United States sits on the brink of the largest wealth transfer in human history, Strom finds himself more concerned with future generations’ non-monetary inheritance: a morally bankrupt government, social instability, and, most importantly, the climate crisis. An environmental disaster generations in the making, the crisis is no longer avoidable, but rather a matter of whether it will be “really bad, catastrophically bad or existential annihilation.” Strom points to a need for change in leadership and the mobilization of massive financial resources – like, all of them – immediately as the only course to mitigate what is to come. “If we do everything right, it’s still really bad, and that’s the best possibility.”
In this podcast, Interchange Founder Tate Chamberlin and guest Pete Strom attempt to reconcile the assumptions and concerns – absolutes and possibilities – surrounding baby boomers’ social, political, economic, and environmental legacy, and its impact on generations to come.
Author and radio host Tom Egelhoff is no stranger to change. Over the 77 years, he’s spent on this planet, he’s weathered periods of poverty and prosperity, wartime and peace. He’s seen technology shift the landscape of communication and watched medical innovation extend the lives and livelihoods of the nearly five generations that have come since his birth. He’s witnessed many of the defining failures and triumphs of this country’s history—assassinations, explorations, recession, and expansion.
While the country teeters on the edge of the largest wealth transfer in its history as aging boomers and traditionalists pass along financial assets estimated in excess of $68 trillion to their progeny, further polarizing the haves and the have-nots and reinforcing unparalleled income inequality, Egelhoff laughs at the worries. A staggering wave of homes and businesses is predicted to hit the market over the next 20 years, but Egelhoff smiles at the financially apocalyptic predictions. The solutions will come when they are necessary, “but they will come in their own time,” as they always have.
In this podcast, Interchange Founder Tate Chamberlin and guest Tom Egelhoff attempt to reconcile the assumptions and concerns – absolutes and possibilities – surrounding baby boomers’ social, political, and economic legacy and its impact on generations to come.
Bozeman native Sheyne Lieber has seen the impact of the unfettered growth for which baby boomers are synonymous on the identity of his hometown and he’s not sold on the resulting “prosperity.” The gross inflation of property values, the flux of disposable wealth, and added burden on local natural resources are just a couple of the undesirables he’s seen since Bozeman’s “boring atmosphere” became the third fastest-growing in the country. The 20yo definitely feels the nature of his generation z’s “general decline in giving-a-shitness.” But, as he asserts, “at a certain point you have to rebound.”
In this podcast, Interchange Founder Tate Chamberlin and guest Sheyne Lieber attempt to reconcile the assumptions and concerns – absolutes and possibilities – surrounding baby boomers’ social, political, and economic legacy and its impact on generations to come.
Photo by Ben Johnson
After a long and successful career in business – including stints at Ernst & Young and Martin Marietta in Denver; Powerhouse Technologies upon her return to Bozeman; and eventually as the CFO and COO, respectively, at RightNow Technologies (now Oracle)—fifth-generation Montanan Susan Carstensen is concerned with giving back. “I want to see the world a better place,” remarks Carstensen. “ I want people to do the right things. And I feel more of a responsibility to share it than maintain it.” Thankfully, “people aren’t good at giving up,” least of all Carstensen, and her commitment to change engenders reciprocity. In addition to sitting on a handful of boards, she actively supports many local non-profits, is involved in an equal number of political causes, and dedicates both energy and assets to the establishment and growth of Montana startups. She is the change she seeks to create.
In this podcast, Interchange Founder Tate Chamberlin and guest Susan Carstensen attempt to reconcile the assumptions and concerns – absolutes and possibilities – surrounding baby boomers’ social, political, and economic legacy and its impact on generations to come.
Kyle Mack is a study in the new self-made man. As he takes a possibly permanent break from pursuing a dual degree in business and psychology, and a perhaps less permanent break from a prosperous career in political activism, Mack is riding through his twenties on a wave divined by his entrepreneurial spirit. Monetizing his hobbies may look like a book or a podcast, but, any which way, Mack intends to continue his own brand of libertarian anarchy, melding the fiscally conservative/socially liberal libertarian stance with a “non-aggressive advocacy of property rights” of both self and possession. What that ultimately seems to translate into is an assertion that the governmental institutions held untouchable for generations are, in fact, quite touchable. “We’re being lied to, and have been, by these untouchable institutions,” claims Mack. And the time has come for that “religiosity of government” held by traditionalists and boomers to stop as generations unite in common efforts toward a progressive and inclusive new norm.
Photo by: Ben Johnson
Sara Blessing admits she’s scared. As she faces a life arguably full of options and opportunity, the recent graduate of Montana State University and founder of the local chapter of the Sunrise Movement feels disillusioned, angry and, yes, afraid. And the climate crisis, the concern on which she expected to focus her attention and efforts, is the proverbial tip of the iceberg. As she examines the world her forefathers built, she sees environmental decimation, income inequality, discrimination, social injustice, cronyism and a political wasteland directed and bolstered by an aging population that is so concerned with biting the hand that has fed them that they are unable to realize the untenable future they have created for their children. And their children’s children.
And that, really, is the crux of Blessing’s problem: how can she realize her only American Dream – that of having children – when she is bringing them into that selfsame future. In this podcast, Interchange Founder Tate Chamberlin and guest Sara Blessing attempt to reconcile the assumptions and concerns – absolutes and possibilities – surrounding baby boomers’ social, political and economic legacy and its impact on generations to come.
Photo by: Ben Johnson
Alright, welcome back to the I Am Interchange podcast, everybody! Tate Chamberlin here for an impromptu interview with Vancouver BC-based social entrepreneur and culinary badass Mark Brand. He’s opened and run several successful restaurants ranging from fine-dining to diners, and in 2013 started the highly successful meal token program out of his restaurant Save-On-Meats that’s prepared over 2 million meals for the homeless and underserved.
As an increasing number of jobs are relegated to robotics, what is the future of work? Will employment become obsolete and, with its predicted scarcity, where will the majority of the population find meaning and the financial resources necessary to realize that meaning once found? As the industrial revolution swept the country and fears that the future of employment looked bleak, work continued. Jobs changed and workers developed new skill sets to meet evolving demands. In this podcast, I Am Interchange; the Montana Governor's Office of Economic Development; and esteemed panelists Rob Irizarry, Deano Roberts, Sandra Boham, and Henri Pellerin explore the good, the bad and the altogether unimaginable Future of Work.
As it turns out, economics isn’t the study of money, but rather one of human actions, behavior, and the incentives that drive them. As local entrepreneur, economist, and co-owner of Dean’s Zesty Booch Henri Pellerin relates, studying economics can shed a lot of light on oneself, others, and how the world works. There is some sort of logical process happening, some measurable motivation that guides humans on the common path from where they are to the “preferable state” of where they want to be. In this podcast, I Am Interchange Founder Tate Chamberlin sits down with Henri Pellerin to discuss economics, the evolution of work, and humanity’s place and purpose in an uncertain future. Henri is on our Future of Work podcast, to be featured next.
Purchasing a home has always been an exalted and expected right of passage into American adulthood, the penultimate realization of the Dream. Buyers’ freedom from the rent trap, pride in ownership, and investment in the future are timeless selling points still touted by realtors marketing homes like snake oil. But, the Dream has become an arguable impossibility for much of the population and a nightmare for many more. As countless Americans continue to spend more and more of their incomes on nicely appointed boxes, pushing through 60-hour work weeks and struggling with the chronic diseases that seem inextricably tied to them, a surprising alternative to homeownership is emerging and gathering followers faster than Instagram. Roam homing, a modern spin on a nomadic lifestyle, provides for inexpensive shelter alternatives, while supporting travel, unique experiences, freedom and, as its proponents argue, a wondrous life beyond the 9-to-5 grind.
In this podcast, Interchange founder Tate Chamberlin explores the simplicity and complexity, the practicality and romanticism, the planning and spontaneity, the infinity adaptable concept of defining home where you park it.
Technology is directing and defining current strategic marketing trends. From LinkedIn connections to enormous MailChimp distributions, drip marketing to Google Ads, Instagram to Facebook, companies are increasingly employing technology to determine, isolate and engage customers in targeted multi-channel campaigns. And consumers, in turn, are inundated with a tech noise jam session every time they open an inbox or launch an app. But what informs this massive marketing machine? Authentic and customized data analytics or unchecked algorithms? Are businesses riding a technologically defined tidal wave to unfettered success or just falling for marketing’s sexiest new toy?
Apsáalooke rapper Christian Parrish Takes the Gun, aka Supaman, was born in Seattle, Washington, but grew up in Crow Agency, Montana. After a series of emotionally charged, formative events throughout childhood, Parrish began an artistic career that has more firmly defined him as a leader among men, an indigenous activist and a spiritual guide than he could have imagined. Or might still.
In June of 2017, 21-year-old Ashley Loring Heavyrunner vanished from the Blackfeet Reservation in Browning, Montana. She took with her the laughter, joy, and brave-as-a-bear courage for which she is lovingly remembered and left behind an oil-stained sweater and a fathomless void full of questions with no answers. With more than four out of five Native women affected by violence (twice the national average) and one in three the victim of rape/attempted rape, unmitigated violence toward indigenous women is a disturbing and multifaceted problem. In this interview with Kimberly Loring, Ashley’s devoted sister and inadvertent champion for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples (MMIP) movement, Interchange unravels the story behind the complex sovereignty designations that have left this population relatively unprotected and explores the far-reaching impacts of MMIP loss through the eyes and hearts of the broken families left in its wake.
Special thanks to Susan Carstensen, Kirsten & Pat Kainz, Yellowstone Theological Institute, Blackfeet Community, HeavyRunner Loring Family, The Crazy Dog Society.
Over the past decade, our nation’s political landscape has become progressively polarized, with each side finding increasing comfort in standing its ground rather than finding a common one. In addition, greater pressure on natural and financial resources in light of political strife, violence, and the climate crisis is accelerating global refugees.
In this episode, we’ll take an honest look at how the divide between the head and the heart influences perspective on major social issues and policy development. We’ll explore compassionate versus practical approaches to two key issues of national debate: healthcare and immigration. And, perhaps most importantly, we’ll talk honestly about where the lines get blurry, how that gray area provides an opportunity to have conversations about divisive issues based on mutual respect and understanding.
Paul Nachman is featured in this episode, examining the duality of Compassion Vs. Practicality. Paul grew up in the 50s and 60s in Chicago, attending public schools in the heart of the city. As a young man, he was a voracious reader and taught himself the foundations of astronomy and scientific study that would help inform his career as a Physicist. He's currently an Associate Research Professor of Physics at Montana State University here in Bozeman.
As an adult, he became active in the anti-illegal-immigration political movement while living in California. He believes unchecked immigration is an invitation for chaos, with cultural and language differences creating a divide between citizens. In particular, he sees the lack of assimilation of ethnic groups into American culture, causing conflict and a lack of community - or as he describes it as "a bunch of warring tribes" within our nations.
For Paul, collective or systemic compassion is a set up for failure - causing us to overextend our resources and create policies that make us feel good instead of bringing order to society. During this episode, we'll dive into his beliefs that a certain degree of separation and a considerable measure of practicality makes us stronger as a nation.
Cover photo by Ben Johnson
Ed Stafman grew up in New York City, surrounded by diversity in the burrows of Brooklyn and Queens. After attending law schools both in the States and in Holland, he began his career focused on civil rights law and criminal defense, particularly in death penalty work. He grew up in a secular Jewish family, but after a moving experience at a spiritual retreat, he wound down his law practice and was ordained as a Rabbi. He served as the rabbi at Congregation Beth Shalom here in Bozeman until his recent retirement. Despite his affinity and appreciation for the riches of Judaism, he believes religious law is divisive and supports a Palestinian state. From his perspective, the often extreme and even violent policies of Israel's far-right government toward Palestinians in the West Bank are more aligned with a separatist group than democratic leadership. Ed has also spent time at the Mexican border, where he witnessed Central American refugees from gang violence spend up to 5 years in prison upon seeking asylum in the United States. He believes it's our responsibility on a humane and democratic level to provide refuge to those fleeing harm. Compassion VS Practicality
Greg grew up in Twin Bridges, Montana, reading everything he could get his hands on. He realized early on in life that he was gay, but chose to shut that part of himself down to be socially accepted. Later in life, he decided to enter the seminary for the Roman Catholic Church and served as a priest at a cathedral in Helena, Montana. He ultimately took a sabbatical from the church to more fully embrace his identity while becoming an activist in Seattle's LGBTQ community. He's since started a counseling practice and is an advocate working to make sure LGBTQ kids growing up in Montana feel safe in their homes and schools.
Greg believes it's God's directive and our moral imperative to take care of the immigrants and refugees seeking sanctuary in our borders. He describes his compassion as having no bounds and believes if we lose in the long run if we are so entrenched in our opinion that we fail to see the humanity of our opponents. Living with AIDS since 2007, he also embraces universal healthcare for its practical implications in his life - as well as another extension of our responsibility to take care of each other. Let's get Greg's thoughts on how compassion should be our defining rule, and why we stand to lose so much in terms of planetary health and personal happiness when we ignore our connections to each other.
Recently, we caught up with Claire Putnam, an Obstetrician-Gynecologist who opened NOVA Women's Health here in Montana to help women make informed decisions about their physical and emotional health. Claire has always felt a desire to help others and jokes that she started her career in medicine early in life, playing the role of doctor and dentist to her young friends and stuffed animals. As she progressed through high school in Berkeley, California and went on to UCLA she pursed the scientific skills and medical training that allowed her to use her natural compassion to serve others as a physician.
Claire's deep sense of connection to other people and desire to see equal access to basic human needs has informed her political perspectives. She believes global migration is an inevitable outcome of the pressures we'll all face while climate change and political conflicts intensify - and that's our global responsibility to find ways to support refugees. On the healthcare front, she believes it's a fundamental human right to have easy access to basic services that support our well-being, at little to no cost.
In a world where we argue about the power of an ‘environmental footprint’, why aren’t we concerned about the increasing number of feet making them? Overpopulation and population control has been a source of debate for philosophers and scientists since the 1700s, and became a household conversation in the 1950s with the publication of the book “A Population Bomb”. But in recent decades the conversation has been sidelined by divisive religious and political views. We’re already seeing the symptoms of population out-consuming its resources. What can we expect when we add another 3.2 billion to our masses by 2050? A number merely 200 million away from the 10 billion maximum cap many scientists have determined is the maximum earth can sustainably support. In this episode, we’ll take an earnest look at our human family, what we’ve done - and what we’re capable of doing to align population growth with the health of our planet. We’ll explore our willingness and our lines in the sand; our stewardship and our salvation. And perhaps, most importantly, we’ll examine the expanse separating belief from science and contemplation from action.
As with all Exchange discussions, we focused on bringing balanced and informed perspectives to the table. We hope you’ll learn something new, or have an opportunity to listen deeper into this challenging and sensitive topic.
Tate Chamberlin here to kick off this episode of the I Am Interchange morning show, focused on the issue of population control. My guest this morning is Danielle Egnew, a psychic medium and author who’s currently in the midst of a tour channeling and translating angelic messages for people in cities across the country. And, as I came to learn, she’s also very tapped into what she describes as ‘heavy air traffic’ for unidentified flying objects over Yellowstone National Park - just a couple hours from our Interchange recording studio.
Danielle is a fourth generation Montanan, born and mostly raised in Billings before pursuing a career in entertainment and music. Her early career included being signed with a small grunge label in Seattle and landing acting gigs before her desire to channel her connection to the beyond drew her back to Montana. Since then her psychic abilities have been called on by police looking for information on cases, and by people looking to have contact with lost loved ones.
Although Danielle believes we are beyond the carrying capacity of the earth, she believes a mindful approach to how and why we have children - and eliminating our consumerist behavior - is the only way to avoid disaster. As a psychic, every timeline she sees in the future includes a dire lack of water - with evidence like the contamination disaster in Flint, Michigan serving as one of hundreds or thousands of warning signs available to us now.
Ultimately Danielle believes nature always win, and will balance itself out - even if that means a drastic reduction in the human population. It’s up to us to decide how our actions influence that balance; and how we ‘surf the avalanche’ of catastrophes we’ve already set off.
Tate Chamberlin with I Am Interchange here and this morning I'm talking to Jack Horner, AKA the fossil hunter whose legendary findings inspired Jurassic Park and set my - and the world's - imagination about dinosaurs on fire. Jack has also worked on all the Jurassic Park films to make sure the depictions of dinosaurs and the science discussed are as accurate as possible. Jack is a globally renowned paleontologist and professor that we're fortunate to have as a neighbor in Interchange's home community of Bozeman, Montana. And on the topic of population control, he has a clear perspective: if we don't want to go extinct, it's an issue we need to think about and address right away. As Jack examines, we don't yet know what the carrying capacity of the earth is because we've extended our ability to live on this planet with agricultural technology and other inventions. But, he believes we're getting close - and population control is our only option to continue living here without a radical transformation of the lifestyle we know and love. The science he's studied and taken to a new level has shown that humans have been living on the planet for 3 million years...but lack the stewardship directive to ensure our existence continues. In the course of our conversation, Jack acknowledges we have the capability of causing our own extinction - but the question is: will we turn it around before the breaking point?
Tate Chamberlin here to kick off this episode of I Am Interchange, focused on the issue of population control, with Jacob Schreiner, a senior pastor with New Life Four Square Ministries. After a tumultuous childhood and a party-filled adolescence he had what he calls an encounter with Jesus and opted to forego material privilege and studying law to forge a closer relationship with the Christian church and Christian principles.
Jacob's take on some key topics are outside the mainstream, for sure. He believes the Earth is approximately 10,000 years old. He also believes the idea of population control is a laughable notion - flying in the face of God's intentions. From his perspective, we are God gave humans dominion over the Earth, ad we have been given infinite capacity to produce the resources that meet our needs and meet challenges as they arise.
From Jacob's perspective, the proof of our authority is in scripture - and the only way the Earth will be destroyed will be due to an act of God.
During the summer of 2018, the western United States and Canada entered what had previously been an ‘unprecedented’ wildfire season. Walls of flame threatened environments from urban neighborhoods to national parks in fires burning more intensely than we’ve seen in this lifetime. And a generations-old debate rages on: can and should humans be doing more to manage these wildfires before they get started AND while they burn? Or should we decide that 100+ years of fire suppression has led us down the wrong path, and it’s time to get out of the way of a natural process? As with anything this complicated, no one side is ever 100% wrong, so we had to take a closer look.
This conversation is not one about the details of firefighting, logging, or forest conservation efforts. It’s about entire ecosystems and community vitality - and how fires have a dynamic impact on both. Wildfires put economic security - and even human lives - on the line, so it’s no surprise perspectives on how to manage and control them evoke strong emotions. But, as with all Interchange panel discussions, we focused on bringing balanced and informed perspectives to the table. We hope you’ll learn something new, or have an opportunity to listen deeper on this challenging and sensitive topic.
We sat down with John Bielenberg, a design guru with more than 250 design awards. From working with some of the world’s top businesses to questioning the practice of design and its function in the world, John is now focused on improving the state of the world through the application of creativity and ingenuity. While humans have the capacity to effect positive change in the world, John believes dysfunctional neural pathways often get in the way. Using this sentiment as the crux behind his design thinking, John continues to inspire our youth and community to use their creative genius to positively serve the world.
Veteran Smokejumper and Interchange X-Change Panelist, Paul Chamberlin sat down with his nephew, Tate Chamberlin. His 25 years of service in an age of evolving science gives Paul a unique view on if forest fires can be managed. As Tate searches for the answer, he discovers how it feels when a noble idea stops being noble in hind site. Why we must adapt to new discoveries despite how it may contradict our pre-existing beliefs. And, how everything, including a devastating forest fire, can be both useful and "good". This while exploring his uncle’s fears, his place in the brotherhood of Smokejumpers, and his view on Climate Change Deniers.
Photo by: Ben Johnson
With farming and ranching moving to an industrial scale and model worldwide, the mechanization of all things edible, and the ready availability of foods imported from across the globe, our relationship with our food has become more complex than ever before. Add to that the mind-melting array of different diets espoused as the best (or only) option and deciding “what's for dinner?” has become a question of health, environmental concerns, and ethics. As with anything this complicated, no one side is ever 100% right, so we had to take a closer look.
This is not a discussion of the broad strokes of agriculture and how we get our food—it is a close look at how people find themselves engaging with the massively complex systems that come between the food on our plates and the farms from whence it came. It’s about personal ethics and cultural philosophies. It does get a little heated when the question of ethics comes up, but that only serves to show how deep, how meaningful the whole enterprise of feeding ourselves actually is.
Former MT Cattle Rancher, Animal Rights Activist and Interchange X-Change Panelist, Howard Lyman sat down with Tate Chamberlin. His background, one in a million surgery success story, and his ordeals being sued with Oprah by the Cattle Industry for $180 million four times gave Howard the right to voice his opinion on the strength it takes to accomplish lofty dreams. In today’s episode Howard and Tate search for the answer, are our food systems sustainable. This while exploring why farming is the way it is, how hard change can be, and why we need to keep fighting to improve life for generations to come.
I Am Interchange hosted a controversial & provocative dialogue on Machismo and the Male Identity in an age when society is coming out of the closet, and women are finding their voices. This thought-provoking conversation fosters curiosity on ideas that include, how much of your identity is entwined in your sexuality? Can a Leather Daddy be submissive? Do abuse survivors ever fully recover? Can a man be a man without being Machismo?
The Machismo Panel features fresh and diverse perspectives. Sasha Joseph Neulinger a Filmmaker / Public Speaker, Timothy Tate an Archetypal Psychotherapist, Erin Schattauer a domestic violence survivor, Mick Burling a Leather Daddy, Rodrigo Martinez Diaz a Zen practitioner, Bobbie Zenker a Trans Activist and Paola Torres a Spanish teacher.
Senate Candidate, Activist, Alliance for the Wild Rockies Board Member, and Interchange XC Change Panelist, Steve Kelly sat down with me, Tate Chamberlin. Steve’s love of the outdoors and drive to protect it grants the Green Party Candidate an interesting perspective on the question, Can Forest Fires Be Managed? As I search for a deeper understanding of how wildfires should be managed, I discover Steve’s theory on the hidden objective of the Forest Service and their famous mascot Smokey The Bear. This when asking the questions, do we even need to manage forest and forest fires? And why is Montana sending its national resources, the main reason behind our booming tourism industry, across national borders?
Tate Chamberlin sat down with Dave Atkins, a forest ecologist turned publisher who has worked across the western US for the past 40 years. Dave strives to find the balance between environmental protection and function, economic sustainability, and social needs when thinking about how to create a better world. He’ll be joining us again in May to lend his expertise surrounding wildfires, which we begin discussing during this podcast. How do we live with fire and use it effectively? How do we bear in mind the necessity to fulfill our individual and most basic needs, while also understanding our actions affect our community and environment? Can we achieve a balance?
In this episode, Tate Chamberlin sat down with Mick Burlington, a crisis counselor and life coach specializing in trauma. Mick has also been a part of the Leather Community since 1991, and has become a pillar of guidance for gay and bisexual men struggling with identity. According to Mick, there is a separation between macho, machismo, and masculinity. Stick around as he guides us through the gray area between the separation, recalling his own journey of identifying as a gay man and the role that masculinity has played throughout his life.
Produced by: Tyson Lunn & Tate Chamberlin
Music by: Nintendeaux
Writing by: Neel Sharma
Joining us today is Timothy Tate, an archetypal psychotherapist based out of Montana. Building from our previous podcast, Timothy takes us on a journey of understanding how we can both leverage and abuse machismo. Using the blending of a matriarchy and patriarchy as a model, Timothy believes the tension of opposites drive both creativity and destruction. Can we use this archetype to better understand the human experience and unshackle machismo as being a mere gender stereotype?
This episode is a precursor to a larger panel we have coming up in February. Seven people from different backgrounds will be discussing Machismo, what it means to them, and how it can be both a negative and positive tool. Hope to see you there.
Joining us in this episode is the very multi talented Erin Schattauer out of Montana. We’ll be discussing machismo, using Erin’s experience as a domestic violence survivor to shed insight on how we can shatter gender stereotypes. Promoting emotionally aware development during children’s most formative years is a part of this process, which is something Erin both teaches and practices; she’s not only a domestic violence activist, but also a mother of a young son.
Photo by: Ben Johnson
Produced by: Tyson Lunn & Tate Chamberlin
Writer(s): Neel Sharma
Broadly speaking, the term cultural appropriation focuses on instances where elements from a minority culture are adopted by a dominant cultural and re-used outside of their traditional, historical, and native cultural contexts. In this episode of the I Am Interchange podcast, a diverse panel of artists, activists & entrepreneurs examine whether cultural exchange can happen in a way that honors unique cultures and identities, or if the history of using other cultures for financial gain makes it more difficult for an exchange to happen in an intentional and respectful manner.
Tate Chamberlin sat down with Jordan Fuller, a performance artist based out of Bozeman. From shedding the confines of his past, to retracing his roots, we’ll be exploring Jordan’s performance art as a vehicle to promote positivity. Stick around to hear more about the early stages of his latest project - using multi media to highlight living conditions on reservations across Montana.
Rob Irizarry was part of our live "Coal Town" Dialogue and Debate representing technology and artificial intelligence. In this episode, we'll recap our live event, AI, universal basic income and other shenanigans.
He spent four decades working with hardware and software technology in both public and private sector organizations building systems, processes and teams in 38 countries, including a decade spent living in Asia. Rob has invested in and coached multiple startups, as well as working to improve education at all levels to help prepare America's youth for the technology that will shape their (and our country's) future.
I Am Interchange and Mountain Time Arts are pleased to present, Is Water A Human Right? A community dialogue & debate fusing artists, activists and entrepreneurs with different ideas and perspectives coming together to address multiple topics and provoke thoughtful dialogue. The public is also invited to participate and give their ideas during the event. We’ll develop our dialogue into a podcast that will be available worldwide.
Lineup:
Susan Duncan- Freelance Teaching & Agriculture
Bently Spang- Northern Cheyenne Artist
Kareen Erbe- Permaculture
EJ Engler- Artist / Architect
Steve White- Gallatin County Commissioner
Carson Taylor- Mayor Of Bozeman
Brian Popiel- SWIMBIA
Matt Kelley- Health Department
Produced by: Mountain Time Arts, Dylan Jesse, Tyson Lunn & Tate Chamberlin
Music by: Nintendeaux
Moderated by: Tate Chamberlin
Performance Art by: DreamWalk
I Am Interchange is a humanities project that brings contrasting and sometimes polarizing ideas into the same room to stir the pot. By doing so, we create a level platform for history, politics, religion, philosophy, criticism, ethics, self-consciousness, reason, creativity, human values and aspirations.
Sponsors: Mountain Time Arts, Humanities Montana, City of Bozeman, Montana Governor's Office of Economic Development, Montucky Cold Snacks, Nova Cafe, Ten Directions, Headframe Spirits, Zocalo Coffee House, Whistle Pig Korean, Sola Cafe & Market, Schenk Construction, Pride Foundation, Lokken Productions, Blunderbuss.
Meg Singer is the Indigenous Justice Outreach Coordinator for the ACLU of Montana. Meg is a native of Salt Lake City, UT, and a member of the Navajo Nation. After graduating from Westminster College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature, Meg moved to Polson, MT, to work as a student advisor for Salish Kootenai College. Meg’s passion for indigenous justice and the rights of Native American and Alaskan Native people took her to Bozeman, MT, to earn her Master of Arts degree in Native American Studies.
She's featured on our dialogue & debate: Is It Cultural Exchange Or Appropriation?
Produced by: Tyson Lunn, Chris Griffin & Tate Chamberlin
We caught up with Lori Shaw who is the co-founder of Colstrip United. A pro-coal grassroots movement dedicated to educating the public about the importance coal and coal energy. She is also running for City Council. Check it out!
EJ is featured in the I Am Interchange 'Morning Show' podcast. As a panelist in the upcoming Interchange debate, 'Is Water a Human Right,' EJ offers a preview of his views of what a 'Right' is.
Episode produced by: Chris Griffin, Tyson Lunn & Tate Chamberlin.
Music by: Nintendeaux
Welcome to I Am Interchange, fusing artists, activists & entrepreneurs with different ideas and perspectives coming together and address multiple topics and provoke thoughtful dialogue. Welcome to I Am Interchange, fusing artists, activists & entrepreneurs with different ideas and perspectives coming together and address multiple topics and provoke thoughtful dialogue.
Today's topic: HUMAN MIGRATION AND DISPLACEMENT.
Our world hit a milestone in 2016—not one with the fanfare and excitement of launching the first satellite into space or landing on the moon, but a quiet and sobering one that is sending shock-waves through communities across the globe. Last year, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees announced that nearly 1 in 100 people around the world has been forcibly displaced from their homes. That's the highest percentage on record since the UN began keeping statistics in 1951. There are currently more than 60 million people globally who have fled from wars, persecution, extreme poverty, violence, or other threats against their lives.
Panelists: Ken Johnson, Wilmot Collins, Mary Poole, Luis Mancheno, Jim Buterbaugh & Paul Nachman.
Produced by: Dylan Jesse, Tyson Lunn & Tate Chamberlin
Music by: Nintendeaux
In advance of our next I Am Interchange event: Is Water a Human Right? August 29, at The Filling Station in Bozeman; Tate Chamberlin sat down with Bently Spang, A Northern Cheyenne Artist, to preview the discussion on Water.
In this podcast Bently provides a brief history of the Northern Cheyenne, the role, importance and respect of water to his tribe and to his artistic work.
Produced by: Mountain Time Arts, Tyson Lunn, Chris Griffin & Tate Chamberlin
In our latest podcast, Kareen Erbe local Permaculturalist, speaks to the value of sustainability of food production, yes, gardening and farming. As you will hear, Water plays an important role and there are apocalyptic visions should we mismanage the sacred resource of Water.
Hear more from Kareen, and other panelists, at the I Am Interchange dialogue & debate: Is Water a Human Right?, August 29th at the Filling Station in Bozeman, Montana.
This episode was produced by:
Tyson Lunn, Chris Griffin & Tate Chamberlin
Welcome to another episode of I Am Interchange. If you are tuning in for the first time ever, I Am Interchange is a community dialogue & debate fusing artists, activists and entrepreneurs with different ideas and perspectives coming together to address multiple topics and provoke thoughtful dialogue. Along the way, we’ll be producing a series of mini episodes that feature guests of our debates and other interesting project goers. Today I have Brit Fontenot, who is the economic development director for the City of Bozeman. He was on our Coal Town event and that's what we're talking about in this episode.
This episode was produced by: Chris Griffin, Tyson Lunn & Tate Chamberlin
I Am Interchange is a humanities project and talk show style event where artists, activists & entrepreneurs with different ideas and perspectives come together to address multiple topics and provoke thoughtful dialogue. Though a good mind flush of new ideas and creativity can offer wisdom and perspective to our own process and development. By doing so, we create a level platform for history, politics, religion, philosophy, criticism, ethics, self-consciousness, reason, creativity, human values and aspirations. We’ll develop our dialogue into a podcast that will be available worldwide.
Lineup:
Lori Shaw: Colstrip United
Conrad Anker: Protect Our Winters / Athlete Team Captain, The North Face
Rob Irizarry: Disruptive Technologist / Artificial Intelligence
Brit Fontenot: City of Bozeman, director of Economic Development
Brent Mead: Montana Policy Institute
Darrin Old Coyote: FMR Chairman of the Crow Tribe
Bill Whitsitt: Mansfield Center / US & Asia Energy Exploration
Brad Van Wert: "The Solar Guy" / Harvest Solar
Topics: Land use, activism, energy, artificial intelligence, fossil fuels, climate, community, tribal lands, education and more.
Produced by: Dylan Jesse, Tyson Lunn, Susan Carstensen & Tate Chamberlin
Music: Nintendeaux & Dubuddha
Moderator: Tate Chamberlin
Photo by: Ben Johnson
In our latest podcast Wilmont Collins, a refugee from Liberia, and I explore the vast difference between: Refugee and immigrant. This conversation dispels many common misconceptions about the experience. Wilmont Collins, has been living in Montana for more than 20 years and is currently seeking the office of Mayor in Helena.
Produced by: Tyson Lunn, Chris Griffin & Tate Chamberlin
I Am Interchange has an upcoming dialogue and debate on Human Migration and Displacement. We will be producing a series of mini episodes that feature the back story of our guests for upcoming events. For this episode, I Interviewed Ken Johnson with the Sons of Odin. The Sons Odin is an anti immigrant & refugee street patrol group that originated in Finland. The group was established as a response to thousands of asylum seekers arriving in Finland amid the European migrant crisis.
The binary choice of ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ are laid out very clearly in our entertainment. Star Wars, for example: Darth Vader wears black, Princess Leia wears white. It’s very clear whom you should cheer for.
When the real life discussions of ‘Cultural Heritage’ and ‘Immigration’ meet the lines and begin to blur as we discover in our latest podcast.
Produced by: Tyson Lunn, Chris Griffin & Tate Chamberlin
Topic: Standing Rock
Interchange is a humanities project and talk show style event where artists, activists & entrepreneurs with different ideas and perspectives come together to address multiple topics and provoke thoughtful dialogue. We don’t necessarily need a solution when we’re finished, though a good mind flush of new ideas and creativity can offer wisdom and perspective to our own process and development. By doing so, we create a level platform for history, politics, religion, philosophy, criticism, ethics, self-consciousness, reason, creativity, human values and aspirations. We’ll develop our dialogue into a podcast that will be available worldwide.
Lineup:
Chuck Peck- Energy Industry
Brian Gootkin- Gallatin County Sheriff
Meg Singer- Indigenous Justice Outreach Coordinator for the ACLU
Jessica Sena- Communications Advisor, Montana Petroleum Association
Darrin Old Coyote- Former Crow Tribal Chairman
Jesse Barney- Activist
KD Segura- Organizer, Activist.
Brent Mead- Montana Policy Institute
Topics: Land use, treaty rights, our reliance on petroleum products, energy, the history of the area, the camps, activism, colonization, water protectors, police and more.
Produced by: Dylan Jesse, Justin Wayne, Susan Carstensen & Tate Chamberlin
Music: Nintendeaux & Dubuddha
Moderator(s): Tate Chamberlin & Kiah Abbey
Photo by: MT Shots Photography
(The cover art was taken during the veteran occupancy at Standing Rock in December, 2016.
Topic: Guns
Interchange is a humanities project and talk show style event where artists, activists & entrepreneurs with different ideas and perspectives come together to address multiple topics and provoke thoughtful dialogue. We don’t necessarily need a solution when we’re finished, though a good mind flush of new ideas and creativity can offer wisdom and perspective to our own process and development. By doing so, we create a level platform for history, politics, religion, philosophy, criticism, ethics, self-consciousness, reason, creativity, human values and aspirations. We’ll develop our dialogue into a podcast that will be available worldwide.
Panel Includes:
Steve Crawford: Chief of Police
Logan Olson: Students for Concealed Carry on Campus
Chris Forrest: Concealed carry licensing
Betty Stroock: Gun Control Advocate
Gregory Smith: Pacifist
Produced by: Dylan Jesse, Justin Wayne & Tate Chamberlin
Music: Nintendeaux & Dubuddha
Moderator(s): Tate Chamberlin & Kiah Abbey
Interchange is a humanities project. It introduces contrasting, sometimes polarizing, ideas into the same pot and gives them a stir. “We don’t necessarily need a solution when we’re finished,” remarks Tate Chamberlin, “though a good mind flush of new ideas and creativity can offer wisdom and perspective to our own process and development.” By doing so, Interchange creates a level platform for history, politics, religion, philosophy, criticism, ethics, self-consciousness, reason, creativity, human values and aspirations. Addressing multiple topics, provoking thoughtful dialogue and uniting people socially, Interchange harnesses the communion inherent in conversation to create strong communities empowered by similarities, rather than divided by differences.
An integral component of Interchange, Xchange is a moderated, talk show-style event that invites artists, activists, entrepreneurs and community members with differing perspectives to come together in thoughtful dialogue. The public is cordially invited to participate and be heard, fostering positive growth, communication and acceptance within the community.
The entire event is recorded and developed into podcasts – available at www.iaminterchange.org – to further broaden the reach of these important conversations and invigorate communities throughout the United States and the world.
Panel Includes:
Jeannie Brown: Commuity at Large
Stephen Zabawa: SafeMontana
Bobby Devine: Spark1
Tayln Gabriel Lang: Cannabis Advocate
Kathryn Mazurek: STAGE 3 Breast Cancer Patient
Dan Dunlap: Former DEA Agent
Produced by: Dylan Jesse, Justin Wayne & Tate Chamberlin
Music: Nintendeaux & Dubuddha
Moderator: Tate Chamberlin & Greg Smith