The Planetary Podcast: Recent Episodes
The Planetary Press
On The Planetary Podcast, you will meet the global leaders and innovators making a positive change on our planet. Covering topics like sustainability, climate change, and circular economy, The Planetary Podcast highlights sustainable solutions around the globe that inspire others to make a measurable difference.
This episode features Julian Cribb, author, science communicator, and Co-Founder of the Council for the Human Future. During our conversation, we discuss Julian's latest book, Earth Detox. We talk about the threat of global poisoning and how we can chart the path toward a safer, cleaner world.
For this episode's show notes, please visit The Planetary Press:
http://www.theplanetarypress.com/2021/08/Ingmar-Rentzhog-The-Planetary-Podcast
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Interview Transcript
Transcribed by Otter AI
Kimberly White
Hello and welcome to The Planetary Podcast. Today we are joined by Dr. John Hewson, former leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, Professor at the Australian National University, and Chair of the Council for the Human Future. Thank you for joining us today!
John Hewson
It's an absolute pleasure, Kimberly.
Kimberly White
Now, the council has identified ten megarisks to civilization. Can you please tell us what these risks are?
John Hewson
Yes, well, we've recently established the council, and we declared our mission really is to alert the global society to the significance and urgency of a series of what we've identified as catastrophic human-made risks, sort of been a victim of our own success in many ways from about the middle of the last century. And these risks together comprise an existential emergency facing all humanity. So our aim is to promote a coherent strategy that will set human civilization on a path to surviving and thriving these risks.
Kimberly White
Now, the council has identified ten “megarisks” to civilization. Can you please tell us what these risks are?
John Hewson
So the ones we've focused on are: the decline of key natural resources, the collapse of ecosystems that support life and the mass extinction of species; human population growth and demand beyond the earth's carrying capacity; global warming, sea-level rise, and change in the climate that's affecting all human activity; widespread pollution of the earth systems by chemicals; rising food insecurity and failing nutritional quality; nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction; pandemics of new and untreatable diseases; the advent of powerful and uncontrolled new technologies; and finally, what we've described as really as a universal human failure to understand and act preventively on these risks.
One of my personal frustrations is the way governments, we would say loosely, ignore the science. They ignore warnings, even specific warnings, as we saw in terms of COVID, pushing these issues down the road as if they're not going to happen. And then, you know, getting caught by surprise or getting caught short. And if you anticipate the risks, and you properly assess the significance of the risks, and you look at the alternative ways in which they can be dealt with effectively, then you can have a very bright future. I mean, most governments got caught short. Their responses have been variable, but within a global collaborative framework that we had to deal with this and as a matter of urgency. And I've been impressed about how quickly people in our country, for example, have responded. Changing the way they live, the way they work, the way they travel, what they say, how they spend, accepting completely different roles, expanded roles for government, and so on, which is sort of been to me a bit of a dress rehearsal for what's possible if we all sign off on the significance of the challenge, and we all pitch in to do our bit at whatever level of society around the globe actually to deal with these serious, very serious risks and threats to our future.
Kimberly White
Now, which of these risks do you find the most pressing at this time?
John Hewson
Well, we don't prioritize. In fact, we argue that it's important to consider them collectively. You don't want to pursue one risk to the detriment of others. You might be able to stimulate more economic activity in a recovery phase by doing more with fossil fuels, but you do a lot of additional damage to the objective in relation to climate. So our focus is really not to prioritize, although, the public debate clearly does focus on some more than others. And then, of course, the intensity of concern varies a lot with the way that some of these issues unfold.
Kimberly White
Absolutely, and, you know, one of the main criticisms when it comes to sustainable development is that a lot of times when we're dealing with some of these issues, we work on them in silo, and we come up with these solutions, they might be solutions to the one issue we're facing, but can exacerbate the others.
John Hewson
That's right, and we've got to be very careful not to do that. And that's been our principal motivating focus, really, and getting people to understand that and accept that. I mean, I recognize the magnitude of that challenge, but you've got to start somewhere, and you've got to push hard, and that's really what we see our role is in this council.
Kimberly White
That's great. And, you know, again, with the governments' responses and COVID. In recent years, we've seen a growing call for governments to step up and take concrete action on the climate emergency. And I think especially so, recently, with the pandemic, we've seen an increase in calls for green recovery. However, there have been few countries that have actually raised their level of ambition enough to meet our climate goals, as seen in the recent NDC synthesis report. How can we increase political will to the levels necessary to tackle these existential threats facing our global community?
John Hewson
Well, it is a frustration. You know that there is no question that these threats are real. There's no question that they are happening now. There's no question that they're extremely grave, yet governments don't seem to want to listen. And I agree with you. I mean, I thought that, you know, everyone's talking about how we recover from the worst or most disruptive economic and social circumstances since the Great Depression. And you look at the pathways to the transition that you need to make, say to a low carbon world by the middle part of this century. And all of those transition pathways, sector by sector, offer very realistic growth potential in terms of investment, in terms of measured growth, in terms of jobs.
So politically, you would think our governments will embrace it. Yet, as you say, they've been very hesitant to actually do that. I think it's a terrible lost opportunity. One of the problems we have had in Australia is going back over the last couple of decades, we have had a very, sort of surreal political debate. Two major parties scoring points on each other and trying to shift blame rather than solving problems, and they just kick this task down the road. And the difficulty is that it's all been done in the context of them asserting, then government, for example, asserting that any response to climate, for example, must be not just disruptive, it must be negative in terms of its impact on growth and jobs, which is completely wrong.
You know, an effective response to climate would give you new industries, new businesses, new jobs, new directions, great potential for accelerating momentum, and so on. Yet, the debate has been really distorted by this simplistic notion that we shouldn't have more disruption, or we should risk losing things in the context of recovering from this pandemic, yet, ironically, it is one of the most effective ways out. And as you say, we haven't seen too many genuine green deals from one government to the next. And, you know, you are seeing Biden push this now in the United States; it's going to put a lot of pressure on Australia, where we are a designated laggard in terms of our recognition of the seriousness of the climate challenge and the magnitude of our response. And I do think there'll be a global competition this year led by people like John Kerry and Biden on the one hand. Johnson wants COP26 to be an outstanding success. The Europeans won't stand back and let Johnson just do that. And then all the others, you know, the Japanese or South Koreans, and even the Chinese, Canadians will all be under pressure to increase their commitments, but not just targets, they've got to actually demonstrate substantive action to move us towards what is in the world's interests, and it's imperative, for a low carbon society over the next two, three decades.
Kimberly White
Exactly the time for talk has passed, it's really time to amp up that ambition, as the Secretary-General of the United Nations said, this is the decade of ambition, the decade of action, we have to do this now. We don't have a choice.
John Hewson
No, that's right. I mean, you got this sense of urgency with the pandemic when it was quite clear that it was really going to spread very far and fast. And that in early stages, it reached, had a fairly alarming death rate in some countries, and people, you know, although governments were slow to respond, they did, in the end, respond, and they are still responding. And they'll do more and more. And that's the sort of momentum you want to see built on these other existential threats. And we just take things for granted.
In Australia, it's a classic example, the government's totally focused on short-term politics. You know, winning the next election, keeping government not delivering visionary, sort of policy responses, not solving the big problems- they kick them down the road. And then because ultimately when you have to deal with one of these problems, it's much greater than you imagined. It's going to take... it's more disruptive, it's going to cost more money, it's going to take more time. And that short-sighted politics is really the problem.
So, you know, we have pressure in the nuclear debate coming out of Iran or coming out of North Korea, and it's sort of discounted, you know. India and Pakistan, both got nuclear capability, and they've constant border skirmishes, we're not sure about the Israelis. They're always there these issues, people just for some reason, discount them. And yet, on any day, it could explode very quickly as a major global threat, a global issue, I should say. It is certainly a global threat.
So this is just a frustration that I have that nobody wants to listen to these warnings. Nobody in government and policymakers, they don't want to listen to the warnings. They don't want to pay attention to the science. You know, it's annoying, isn't it when they say, “Oh, in response to the pandemic, we have listened to the medical science, we've listened to the medical experts.” Although that was pretty rudimentary and not a lot of evidence to go on, you have to go back to the Spanish flu in 1918, to get any sort of basis for that, although you've had SARS and Ebola and others in this century. But, you know, they say they listen to that science, that is pretty rudimentary science compared to climate science, which has been overwhelmingly peer-reviewed. And it's very, very substantive. It emphasizes when such a high percentage of climate scientists and other scientists say that this is a major problem that needs to be dealt with as a matter of urgency. You know, governments still don't quite get it, they don't quite listen.
Kimberly White
Now, that really is a problem, and how can we get that message to governments? How can we get them to hear us when we're talking about this? Because I think with COVID, we did see a little bit more of a uniformed response, where people kind of readily accepted the science, with the exception of a few, that this is an existential risk, this is something we need to address now. Yet, with climate change, we have known for several years now that this is going to be much worse.
John Hewson
You just have to keep arguing the point. I mean, I know how frustrating that can be. Because, as I say, the science of climate has been around much longer term, it's much more substantive. There's no vaccine for climate. It's an issue that is much, much bigger, and potentially more disruptive than the pandemic. So you would think at some point, some government is going to say, “This is a real issue, we're gonna have to deal with it.”
So what we're trying to do in a small way from the council is to raise this profile of the issue. I mean, we've got a conference coming up which we're calling Delivering the Human Future, which has got a range of global experts talking about the significance of each of these risks, and documenting the available solutions now. We're hoping to lead to a letter, I think we're going to pose it to the governments and the peoples of the earth, getting them to develop a clear plan if you like, a clear pathway for human survival.
Kimberly White
Now, going back to Australia, Australia has been on the front lines of the climate crisis. We saw the devastating bushfires and the massive coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef; it made global headlines. So what adverse effects of climate change are you currently seeing in Australia, and what is being done to address it?
John Hewson
I think the key point is that as a result of the intensity, say of the bushfires, and we've had, you know, a lot of extreme weather events, not just bushfires, but most recently, that's been a focus. And then, of course, the impact of the pandemic. People are coming to recognize that these events cost and the cost of inaction is going to swamp really or is swamping the cost of action. People don't understand why we don't prepare better for the next bushfire. What have we learned from the last one? What are we carrying forward to the next one? Or in terms of droughts, for example, we have an extremely, very dry continent. We have extreme droughts. What do we learn from one drought to the next? And here some of the solutions to climate come into their own don't they? I mean, regenerative agriculture, for example, can improve the resilience of the soil, make it much more drought resistant. It's fairly simple to do changing farming techniques, rotating crops and animals, land clearing, revegetation, basically increasing the carbon content of the soil, not using chemical fertilizers, using organic fertilizers not, you know, shallow tilling or no tilling of the soil.
These events can actually, these policies, changes in farming techniques can actually improve the carbon content of the soil, which gives a carbon credit which the farmer can then sell. So that you know it's a win-win. It's reducing emissions. And indeed, there is a lot of evidence now in Australia that agriculture as a sector can be net negative emissions by simply restoring the carbon content of the soil by sequestration. And, you know, you'd say, well, that's a great opportunity. Now, people are starting to recognize the significance of that. So when the government won't do it, the National Farmers Federation, New South Wales Farmers Federation, all coming out and committed to net zero emissions by 2050. The Grains Council has been talking about having net negative emissions because they recognize, their argument, as it was put to me, is that for every one tonne of carbon they put out, they can put three back. So you know, net negative emissions are really possible. So the debate is starting to move to recognize the significance and the cost of extreme weather events, for example, and the role of climate, if you want to loosely turn it out and behind why that is happening. You know that was a simple prediction of climate scientists, wasn't it? We will have more extreme weather events that will occur with greater frequency and intensity. That certainly happened. And people are starting to recognize that, and the government is saying, “Well, we will do something about regenerative agriculture. We will fund it to some extent in the next budget,”. Although, as I say, it doesn't really need much funding.
The same thinking has started to sink in in relation to the transition to renewable energy. And we haven't done very much in terms of the electrification of the vehicle fleet yet, but that's the next one off the ranking. You know, it won't take that long. I think once those views get momentum, and people recognize the benefits that are far going to outweigh any costs of inaction. Then, of course, I think the debate starts to move.
So it's been a long grind. I've been involved in Australia since the late ‘80s, early ‘90s, trying to win this argument, only to see it frittered away with political infighting and so on over a large part of that time. But the community is demanding action. Households in Australia have the highest penetration of rooftop solar in the world. And people are moving, businesses are moving, civil societies are moving, our bigger institutions, whether it's our Central Bank, the Reserve Bank, or our corporate regulators, they're all moving, saying these are significant risks, they've got to be addressed. So it is early stages after several decades, but we are seeing early stages of momentum, I think building.
Kimberly White
That's fantastic. And you know, on regenerative agriculture, those are the exact type of solutions that we need. Because globally, industrial agriculture accounts for 80 percent of deforestation and the World Health Organization has named land-change, such as deforestation and land conversion for agriculture, as the leading driver of emerging infectious diseases. So it all goes to show the connectivity of how our actions are not just affecting the health of our planet, but the health of ourselves as well.
John Hewson
That's right. And you know, when you start to get that sort of debate going internationally, and people recognize the significance of it, it can make a difference. My frustration is Australia, given our very large pastoral lands, grazing lands, agricultural lands, and so on, we could be a world leader in regenerative agriculture. We could set the standard. We've got the technologies. In fact, there is a very new technology that is about to be released, measuring the carbon content of the soils for a few dollars, and ultimately a few cents per hectare. So this can be done and it can be done very cheaply. And the potential in terms of benefits either to farmers or the industry or to the country are enormous. So we're on the cusp, I think, of maybe seeing that happen. And when the global organizations start to point out the potential, I think it's a no-brainer to me.
Kimberly White
Understandably, and I think a lot of times we hear the excuse that it's too expensive to do these things. But, a recent report by the World Economic Forum found that shifting away from business as usual and adopting nature-positive solutions across multiple sectors would be a $10 trillion opportunity for business, and it could create millions of jobs by 2030.
John Hewson
I think it's very good that the debate is spreading at all levels of the global community. And those who really feel it in some of the developing countries, they get the extreme impacts of climate, for example. But in Australia, we are one of the most climate-exposed countries in the world, and you think we'd be much further advanced. I am annoyed that we are designated as a laggard when we could be a leader in so many ways. We've got some of the best resources of sun and wind, we've got huge deposits of graphite and lithium for batteries. There's no reason why we can't do it. And we can become a major exporter of energy, or ammonia, or hydrogen, or whatever. So the opportunities are there. We just need a bit of leadership, I think, globally and domestically to make a difference.
Kimberly White
Well, I was encouraged to see the cities of Sydney and Adelaide take that next step forward and commit to 100 percent renewable last year.
John Hewson
Yes, in terms of their own activities, that's a very sensible thing to have done. And in a way, in Australia, the cities, the big cities, and the states have been leading the federal government. And you would have thought that was an embarrassment enough in itself, really. And I've seen a similar thing in the US when Trump started to, you know, pull back from Paris, a number of the big cities and a lot of businesses and so on actually said, well, we're just going to continue. It's an imperative. It's not something you should be playing games with politically. It's not a situation to be gained for perceived political advantage. It is a responsibility of governments not only to the current generation but importantly to future generations who are going to find it extremely difficult to actually handle this.
We just put out a report, we have a climate targets panel, showing that the government is talking about now, the federal government's talking about having a net-zero emissions target by 2050; they'll throw that into the Paris mix. But that's meaningless when their target for 2030 is so small, 26 to 28 percent reduction, in emissions of a 2005 base, it's less than half what was recommended at the time that target was announced. And if we don't get something like 60 percent of our emissions reduction by 2030, then in every year after 2030 to 2050, we got to do up to 10 times as much adjusting as we do in this decade.
So this is just, the orders of magnitude are absolutely staggering, and at some point, I think that will come home to whoever is in government. And you are getting very big movements now in two ends of our political spectrum. Young people, of course, are very strongly aware of what's being done and how the challenge is being pushed down to them. But a lot of older Australians, people who are worried about their kids and their grandkids and the sort of world that they're leaving to them, are also active. So we've got a very strong political motivation now; I think the government actually moves, but you know, having said that, they still continue to play short-term political games.
Kimberly White
Yeah, I think we see that a lot all around the globe. And with climate change, we really have to look past that partisan lens that we have because climate change is going to impact everyone everywhere. It does not care what political party you're a part of.
John Hewson
It doesn't differentiate by ideology or by age, or by region, really. Some parts are going to do a lot worse than others. And, as you say, the interconnectedness between some of these threats is so serious, and it becomes quite conspicuous when you look at global development strategy. So I think, you know, we are hopeful that modest efforts like our council, along with a whole lot of others, can actually start to change the debate.
Kimberly White
Now, you touched on this a couple of minutes ago, but I want to go into it a little bit further, and that is- do we have a moral obligation, an intergenerational responsibility to ensure a stable climate for future generations?
John Hewson
Yes, one of the arguments that you hear in Australia all the time is, "Oh, look, we're only a small, you know, per capita emitter." We are the largest per capita emitter in the world, but it's sort of 1.3, 1.4 percent. That ignores the fact that we're also one of the world's largest exporters of fossil fuels- coal, thermal coal, and LNG. And when you allow for the significance of those exports, we rank about the fifth or sixth-largest emitter in the world in absolute terms. So we have a very big responsibility; we have a moral responsibility, which is intergenerational. We have, as a major exporter, a global responsibility way beyond just the per capita level of emissions that we want to identify, and the government hangs its hat on that which is sort of meaningless.
So scope three considerations. Now, some of our big miners, like BHP or worrying about scope three emissions, like who do they sell the coal for? What do they do with it? What standards can you put on that? What requirements can you put on it? This is very important. So, these moral responsibilities are very significant. I think, to me, that climate change is not only a very significant economic, social and political issue, it is a very significant moral issue. And that dimension has been downplayed. And it's got very significant health consequences and a whole lot of other dimensions, which I think are now starting to be recognized and come to the fore.
Kimberly White
I think that is accurate for a lot of countries at this time. I know here in the US, we were lagging behind in climate action for several years there. So I'm hopeful that we really pick up the pace. As we've mentioned with John Kerry, I'm hopeful that we'll start to see some real concrete action come out pretty quickly. Now our last question, as an economist, what are your thoughts on the call for a clean energy transition?
John Hewson
Again, another one of my frustrations given that we have an unusual endowment, natural endowment in Australia, of solar and wind assets, and we have the technologies to actually produce very cheap electricity and to export that electricity or using it to create, you know, green hydrogen and ammonia, and so on, which is happening. A number of business organizations are starting to do this now. But the potential for a country like Australia is enormous, and you can make a very big difference by ensuring that the transition to renewables occurs.
You know, it's just one of those things which… take it the other way, in Australia, we've had a couple of decades of sort of both sides of politics fighting each other and scoring points. The losers have been consumers of power, because we've had to pay a much higher price for electricity and gas, for example, than otherwise would have been the case. The implicit carbon price, as an economist would say, is much higher than would otherwise have been if we just put a price on carbon in the beginning and let it drive the process. So I do think that these realities are starting to be recognized and accepted. And obviously, the transition to renewables in the power sector is fundamentally important for a country like Australia, but also, I think, globally.
And then, of course, the other sectors, we've talked about regenerative agriculture, the transport sector, the electrification of the vehicle fleet and so on, it is happening. I mean, a lot of the car manufacturers are now setting targets for electric vehicles rather than petrol-driven vehicles. Moving out of them all together over the next decade in a lot of cases. So these changes are taking place. The economics of this is overwhelmingly positive. It's, not just an economic consideration, but as we've said, the social dimensions of these transitions are very good. I mean, you've got to manage it, sure.You have to move away from coal-fired power, you're going to manage the communities that are built around coal mines and coal-fired power stations, and give them a transition in terms of offering up job opportunities, retraining, in some cases retrenchment, relocation of families, and so on. These things can be managed. And you've got a decade, let's say, looking to 2030 to actually make the difference over a ten-year period, you can actually make all those transitions effective and fair. And so it is a just and effective transition that we're looking for. And I think in terms of renewable energy, clean energy that's fundamental to the process. And it can make a big difference by just actually embracing that and encouraging the development of it. And solar power now is so much cheaper than coal-fired power, or new coal-fired power. It is so much cheaper than gas-fired power. I mean, the economic argument has been won, the technology risk has been eliminated. There is no reason for not accelerating that.
Kimberly White
Absolutely. We touched on it a few minutes ago, but can you tell us a little bit more about the Council's upcoming conference and how our audience can tune in?
John Hewson
Yes, well, I think we're going to distribute two contact points for the two-day conference, obviously, with time zone differences. We've had to run it over two days. But we've got a string of very significant speakers who are going to contribute to this conference.
We've got Gerardo Ceballos, who's going to talk about the "Extinction and the Future of Humanity." Julian Cribb will talk about "The Age of Renewable Food." "Avoiding a Ghastly Future" will be Paul Ehrlich. "Pandemics and the Future of Global Health" will be Soumya Swaminathan. "Global Water Security," Peter Gleick. "Clean up the Planet," Ravi Naidu. "Hothouse Earth and How to Avoid It," Will Steffen, one of my colleagues here at ANU. "Taming the Nuclear Menace," Tilman Ruff. "AI and Other Risky Technologies," Toby Walsh. "An Economy to Save the Earth," Laurie Laybourn. And "Facing the Population Overgrowth," Jane O'Sullivan.
Outstanding world-class speakers, specialists in each of those ten areas of, we call them existential risks. These speeches will be recorded and available online in perpetuity. So we are hoping that it will actually stimulate a global discussion of the significance of these sorts of issues.
Kimberly White
All right, well, I am definitely looking forward to that. Thank you so much for joining us, John. It was such a pleasure speaking with you.
John Hewson
Thanks, Kimberly.
Kimberly White
The Council for the Human Future is calling on the nations and people of the Earth to band together to overcome the ten great megarisks facing humanity. Join them to learn more about these megarisks and discover the solutions in their series Delivering the Human Future, available online and the links to the conference will be included in this episode's show notes on The Planetary Press.
Delivering the Human Future
Day 1 Schedule (Saturday March 20th PDT):
Day 1 Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiHrAqrPQ10
1:05pm- Opening remarks, Professor John Hewson, CHF Chairman
1:20pm- "Avoiding a Ghastly Future", Emeritus Professor Paul R Ehrlich, Stanford University
1:50pm- "Pandemics and the Future of Global Health", Dr Soumya Swaminathan, WHO Chief Scientist
2:20pm- "Global Water Scarcity", Dr Peter Gleick, Pacific Institute President-Emeritus
2:50pm- Break (15 minutes)
3:05pm- "Hothouse Earth and what we can do to avoid it", Emeritus Professor Will Steffen, Australian National University
3:35pm- "Taming the Nuclear Menace", Professor Tilman Ruff, Co-founder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)
4:05pm- "Extinction and the Future of Humanity", Professor Gerardo Ceballos, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
4:35pm- "Risks of Artificial Intelligence", Professor Toby Walsh, University of New South Wales.
Day 2 Schedule (Sunday March 21st PDT):Day 2 Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGEjktmUdzM
1:05pm- "Clean Earth: humanity's next great challenge", Laureate Professor Ravi Naidu, University of Newcastle
1:35pm- "The Age of Renewable Food", Julian Cribb, author and science writer
2:05pm- "Facing up to overpopulation", Dr Jane O'Sullivan, University of Queensland
2:35pm- Break (15 minutes)
2:50pm- "Racing to save ourselves from ourselves", Leilani Munter, race car driver and eco-activist.
3:20pm- "An Economy to save the Earth", Dr Laurie Laybourn, UK Institute for Public Policy Research
3:50pm- Plenary Debate and Resolution. Letter to Citizens of Earth.
4:50pm- Closing Comments, Professor John Hewson, CHF Chairman
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Kimberly White
Hello and welcome to The Planetary Podcast. Today we are joined by Angela Pozzi, Founder and Artistic Director of the Washed Ashore Project. Thank you so much for joining us today, Angela.
Angela Pozzi
Thank you. It’s exciting to be here.
Kimberly White
So Angela, can you tell us more about your work with Washed Ashore?
Angela Pozzi
Well, I’m the founder of Washed Ashore, art to save the sea, which is actually a nonprofit organization based in a little tiny town on the southern Oregon coast called Bandon, Oregon. It is an educational nonprofit where we work with volunteers to clean up beaches of plastic pollution, and then people bring all that stuff into us. We process it, turn all that stuff into educational art supplies, and we create gigantic sculptures in the forms of marine animals that are threatened by plastic pollution. Then, in order to do the work that we really want to, we exhibit our work around the country in four different traveling exhibits and try to reach as many people as we possibly can with the idea that if people see the junk that is washing up on our beaches and recognize it as things that they use every day, we will start changing people’s consumer habits. So, that’s really what we do, and we have signage to go with it. But our work is meant to be powerful and huge, and you can’t ignore it so that we can get more solutions happening to tackle the plastic pollution problem.
Kimberly White
That’s amazing. The artwork that you created is just larger than life and so beautiful to look at. It’s hard to believe that it’s made out of something like plastic pollution. So have you always been an artist? And can you share more about your background?
Angela Pozzi
Yes, I do want to tag on to what you just said because our work is often considered and what we try for is beautiful but horrifying. Go with beautiful and horrifying, just kind of an interesting combination. So me as an artist, I was one of those few fortunate people who grew up with art surrounding me. My mom was a professional artist, and she made sure that we knew what that meant to be a professional artist. That meant she had a studio full time, and that was her job. She went to work every morning making art, and just as a painter and an exhibitor, worked in museums and galleries and sold it.
My father was an arts administrator, which means he was a museum director when I was a kid, and so I got to just go into museums and galleries all the time. So I was very, very blessed with always having a place in my mother’s studio, and my parents nurtured my creativity ever since I was a baby. So I was really, really lucky, and it’s really funny. I’ve taken art lessons along the way. But really, my parents growing up at my mom’s studio and having art critiques and going to museums is really my best arts education. Although I did study it, what I realized was that I was so lucky that a lot of my friends and everybody in my public schools didn’t get it, didn’t understand how important art was as a language and how great it was. And so, I was determined to become an art teacher.
So I went off to college, I got my education degree and got certified as an early childhood elementary teacher, and specialized in art. Then I ended up teaching, actually certified with art all the way through high school. So I was actually a dedicated art teacher to bring the kind of love for the arts and the importance of it to the rest of the public. For 30 years, I was an art teacher. And my mother always said, “You know, Angela, you should really be an artist,” and I’m like, “no, no, no; you guys do that, I don’t. I’m an art teacher,” When she passed away when I was age 40, I finally looked at myself and went, you know, maybe I should give it a shot. Maybe my mom had something; maybe I should give it, see what I’ve got in me. So I went to part-time teaching and started making art out of repurposed materials. I actually still have a website up called sea things art.com, and that is my earlier work, and I would go to thrift stores, and I would get stuff that, you know, were interesting looking and put them together, but I was always intrigued with the ocean. So my work always reflected coral reefs and sea creatures and made-up things, and so that really kind of led me into Washed Ashore. I started really becoming an artist in, you know, in the last 20 years, really, because I’m now 63. So yeah.
Kimberly White
I just love your story. I think it’s so cool how you went from, you know, that background of having your parents as the art teachers for that enrichment and then being an art teacher, and then you’re obviously a very talented artist. So your mother was right.
Angela Pozzi
Still learning!
Kimberly White
What inspired you to use plastics as your medium? Can you tell me a little bit more about how Washed Ashore came about?
Angela Pozzi
That was also a very personal story. I had always come to the southern Oregon coast as a child, even though we never lived here. My parents lived in Utah and then in Washington State. We would always come to Bandon, Oregon, every summer where my grandparents lived, but also where our family had a family cabin on a little lake. So I spent all my summers here. I mean, I loved it here so much that I would when I was older, I had the key to the cabin on my keychain, and I would just hold it and stare at it, going, I can get to the ocean anytime I want. Because I never lived at the ocean and so it always had a special place in my heart. I always walked to beaches when I was a kid and really felt like it was, you know, just a sacred place. I’ve known the beaches in this area for a very long time. When I was a little kid, we would find something from Japan and get really excited. I was like, oh, wow, look at this, you know, we’d run home and just like, wow, we put it up on our mantel because it was so special to find usually something plastic and you’re like ‘Wow, that’s amazing!’ Now, it’s a whole different world. So what happened was, as I was teaching, I was up in Vancouver, Washington as a full-time teacher.
The other part of my life is I was married to a wonderful artist and also art teacher, Craig Pozzi. We got married in 1980. We have a beautiful daughter, Nicola Pozzi. We were married for 25 years when he suddenly became very ill with seizures, and a whole series of events happened, where he ended up dying in 2004, and I was a mess. We were living in Vancouver. My daughter was a mess. I was a mess. It was just really traumatic. He was paralyzed the last year of his life, and I couldn’t teach. I was just disabled by the whole thing, really. So I really had to figure out how to get my life back and what my life would look like and what would be my purpose in life because I just was destroyed. So I thought I have to move to the ocean and let’s move to Bandon, Oregon, because that way I can go to the place that’s always been there for me, I can heal there. So I did, I moved to Bandon, and I walked the beaches every day, and I noticed there was like junk on the beach, but I really didn’t want to see it. I kind of walked over it. I just wanted to see beauty and heal. Until one day, it was so in my face. It had been a couple of years actually being down in Bandon making my artwork; when there we go, that’ll keep you busy, and let’s just make that happen.
My mom was also a great woman that she said you can do anything you set your mind to, and I’ve always believed that. I thought, “Okay, Angela, go, how are you gonna do that?” And my creative brain just kicked in, and I thought, okay, gotta figure it out, and here we are. I got it figured out. Then, in 2010, I started a nonprofit, and I got a show. Based on my other work that had gotten good reception, I called the same people up and said, I got a great show for you. You just have to trust me on this. It’s all made of garbage. Like what? Anyway, it worked, and I got it traveling. Now we have a thriving nonprofit, we have lots of people, over the years have worked with us, and for us, we have a powerful staff, and, and I am a professional artist with a wage now. So there you go.
Kimberly White
I think your story is so inspiring because it’s just, we should all have that attitude of, you know, when we care about something like you do the ocean, I’m gonna go save that and do anything we can to help raise awareness. I think that’s just amazing, and, you know, plastic pollution has been one of the most discussed topics among world leaders in recent years aside from climate change, which is understandable, with more than 8 million tons of plastic ending up in the oceans each year. It reaches the farthest points of the Earth from the remote corners of the Pyrenees to the Mariana Trench. It’s become so pervasive; we’re even finding it in our foods. So, you see these discarded pieces of plastic pollution on the shore. How does it go from pollution to a piece of artful awareness? Can you walk us through your creative process?
Angela Pozzi
Well, we really depend on volunteers. It’s huge. What’s interesting is Oregon is not at all known for polluted beaches. We are known for beautiful, serene, you know, picturesque beaches, and but it’s we’re part of the Asian currents that we get garbage on our beaches, like everybody else in the whole world, coming from all over the world. So we pick it up on a regular basis. We have a place on Highway 101, which is a major thoroughfare and a scenic highway, where people could just drop off bags of garbage that they pick up off the beaches anytime. And they do. We also partner with the state parks. They love us. Because they actually get excited about picking up garbage, even though it’s part of their job, they get excited and come in here and say, “Oh, I found a really cool thing that’s gonna look great on your new eagle or whatever,” So it’s been fun in that regard that we change people’s attitude about picking it up. It’s not as depressing because they know that it’s going to turn into something that’s meaningful. So, therefore, you motivate more people to pick it up when they know that it’s not just going to go to the dump. So that has helped kind of fuel the beach clean-ups a little bit more in the area of all along Oregon.
Now we partner with all kinds of organizations for that. Then we have our staff. We actually have full-time people that, you know, one person’s job is she just washes and cuts and drills plastic. That’s all she does. We do that on a regular basis. Currently, I’m the art director. I have actually held almost every job at Washed Ashore, but we just recently hired an executive director, which is really great because she could do a lot of the grants and all the other stuff on the business side, and I can do more the artistic stuff. We have a lead artist, which also is a job I’ve held, who I work with, and I also do some of the actual building. But we have to design and figure out what pieces we’re going to do.
We like to have an inventory that really shows the variety of animals that are affected by plastic pollution. So we’re also doing river to ocean animals and sky to ocean to river to animals. We’ve done polar bears on a melting iceberg. We’ve done a river otter, you know, on the shoreline. So we look at what kind of animals then we do a lot of research. We really research it. I try to get inside the heads of animals and find out everything I can about them so that we can bring that to the work. Then normally, we do have workshops, where we actually cut up things and bring in stuff and prepare like small six-inch by six-inch pieces of wire that people wire mesh that people would then wire pieces on to the wire mesh. So they’ll drill holes, they put wire through, they twist the wire, and then those pieces that have a very specific criteria and craftsmanship that we require. Those small little pieces then come back to the artists that are going to be assembling it. We work with a welder to do a stainless steel welded frame.
We have learned over the years to use stainless steel because we exhibit our work outdoors and in public places. So we need them forkliftable. Double stainless steel is strong; it’s expensive, though. So we have to find the money to do that. So we do also, you know, rely on grants and donations and things like that. But we then create a frame, and then we start putting all these pieces on top of it. The heads usually come off so that I can work on those in my studio. Right now, I’m about to start working on our bald eagle. That is, I’m working on the head of the claws and then the fish that it’s grabbing out of the ocean. My lead artist is doing the body and the water, and we kind of divide things up. We also work collaboratively all the time. So collaboration is a really important part of it working with volunteers. It’s a very different creative process than a lot of art people go through. It’s one I love. I love collaboration.
Kimberly White
Great. I love hearing how it works. I’m really excited to see your eagle once it comes to life. One of my favorites that I’ve seen of your work so far has been the octopus. I found that so amazing. Then the colors! It’s just so lovely.
Angela Pozzi
She is one of my very favorite pieces.
Kimberly White
So how many pieces have you created?
Angela Pozzi
Well, I like to say the Washed Ashore project has created over 80 pieces so far. I think we’re past that now because we just keep making them. We average about anywhere from three to five a year that we create. So we have retired a few. Some from our early work has kind of, you know, we didn’t do stainless steel, so they have osteoporosis, and they start crumbling from the inside. But that’s only one of our old, old, old, old dudes. But yeah, about 80 works of art. I’d say if you count, every little jellyfish we’ve done is probably over; it’s way over 100.
Kimberly White
Wow, that’s impressive. So, how long do these typically take to create, and how much plastic pollution typically goes into creating one of these incredible pieces? Like Octavia, for example?
Angela Pozzi
Oh, you know, everyone wants to know the answers to those questions. It’s such a convoluted process. For instance, we’re working on an eagle right now, which has brown. Brown is one of the least common plastics that wash up on the beaches. We don’t color anything except our screws that we screw in. That’s the only thing we paint. Otherwise, we have to accept the plastic as it comes in. Then we just categorize it, save it until we get enough to create something with. Brown is very uncommon. Brown plastic isn’t used for much except for the soles of shoes, or maybe some flip-flops. So it has taken us quite a few years to accumulate enough brown plastic for the eagle, which also meant we could not do a sea lion or an otter or anything else that is brown in that time period. So that’s a very bizarre process because usually, you could just go get brown paint, or you could just go get whatever you need at the store, but we have to wait for it to wash in. There are certain things that we know we can count on, especially now that I’ve been doing this for 11 years. I know I can count on a lot of black and a lot of white and a lot of blue.
So we’ve done four penguins, we’ve done two whale tails, we’re able to do big black birds easily. But our eagle, it’s gonna have a lot of black mixed with brown in it, because we don’t just still don’t have enough brown for it. So just the accumulation of the materials and then the prepping of the materials. We’ve been spending just a month figuring out which pieces are cut for which things and cut, start cutting the plastic and washing it, cutting it, just a month of just doing that. Usually will take our volunteers a couple of months to actually make the piece work for a piece. The frame takes a month to weld usually; sometimes, it takes me a whole month just to do the head of an animal. Some of those things can all happen at once. Sometimes they can’t. Depending on what else we have going on, we often are working on two or three pieces at once. When I first started Washed Ashore, we did 13 pieces in six months, but only one of them was really large. They also were not as detailed and as good as they are now, so we’re more demanding of ourselves. We like to say that when someone requests a commission, which we get quite a few of those where people ask us to build something specific, we like to have a year, unless we already have piece work already done that can be used or unless we already have enough plastic, and then we can take it down maybe to six months.
Kimberly White
Very interesting. I was wondering how long it would take, and I didn’t know that you guys didn’t paint them. So it’s all the color of the plastic that washes ashore?
Angela Pozzi
Well, and so really, the whole idea is to have people see what washes ashore and to teach them what it is. So we have to always put recognizable things in everything we do. Sometimes we process things a little more; if they’re really big, big pieces, then we chop it up into little pieces. But then, if we process something a lot, we also make sure we have recognizable things, also, in the same piece. We like to keep it, as you know, authentic so people can’t make excuses about it. They also recognize it more if it’s in the color that they would buy in the store.
Kimberly White
What are some of the most common things that you’ve seen wash ashore that you’ve used in your artwork?
Angela Pozzi
Water bottles, first thing water bottles, we get so many drink bottles and water bottles. Not just water, and believe it or not, cans. I don’t know why. I mean, water bottles and cans can all be recycled. So it’s really odd that things that could be recycled are coming ashore so much, but that’s really common. Flip-flops, as if flip-flops were the most common shoe worn in the world, but that’s pretty common. I’m sitting here looking at a piece right next to me that we’ve created, and we use chair parts throughout this whole sturgeon we just made. A lot of times, broken chairs get dumped. This is a really strange thing to me because if it’s a wooden chair, a lot of times people will repair it, or at least they used to. So we also get shotgun shell wads; we get everything.
I mean, the thing that’s so strange is that there isn’t anything I haven’t seen. I mean, everything comes ashore because a lot of places in our world, a lot of rivers are used as dumps by certain countries all around the world and, and a lot of those rivers dump right into the ocean and things last forever. We get things that I swear are like from the 1950s washing ashore that are still recognizable as to what they are because plastic just keeps going. We get a lot of toothbrushes. I mean, toothbrushes don’t disintegrate; they just keep going forever. And it’s just amazing to me. Just everything, bottle caps are everywhere. But we see everything.
Kimberly White
Now the chairs are especially strange, and I wouldn’t have anticipated seeing a lot of those. So that’s interesting. Yeah, water bottles are a huge problem, I would say, especially here in the United States, because when you go to any store, you see plastic bottles. And, you know, we’re in this like throwaway society where we buy something, and we throw something away, but it never really goes away.
Angela Pozzi
Well, and water bottles, you know, people think that drinking water that’s been sitting in plastic is good for them. It really isn’t. There is all kinds of research that is showing it getting into the water that you’re drinking, and, you know, unless it’s something you absolutely have to have because you don’t have a good water source, I would say that your tap water is going to be a lot healthier for you to drink unless it has been proven not to be.
Kimberly White
Yeah, there was a recent study that I found very interesting from WWF Australia, which found that people could be consuming up to five grams of plastic, which is about the size of a credit card, every week. That is just insane to me to even think about, you know, eating a credit card.
Angela Pozzi
They’re saying that our dust is having a lot of plastic in it. And you know, a lot of the fabrics of our clothes, we think about the dust that comes out of your dryer, and if you go look at that outside, a lot of that is plastic-based. So it’s pretty scary. The thing about plastic pollution is it is something we can do something about because it’s what we buy. If we demand a different supply, we can get it turned around, we have to demand, and we have to invest in alternatives to our synthetic world.
Kimberly White
Absolutely, we need to vote with our dollars.
Angela Pozzi
Every purchase is a vote, and so I tell people.
Kimberly White
Yeah, and that goes beyond the plastics crisis as well. It goes with opting for, you know, more sustainable clothing options, opting for less meat and more plant-based and supporting sustainable businesses versus things that are just created to only last one or two times. So what has been one of the most challenging pieces you’ve created?
Angela Pozzi
Well, probably Octavia, the octopus, the one we both love. Because I feel like I got it with her, that makes me very satisfied. I wanted to create an octopus that looked like it was moving. I also know that part of my background is I was a dancer, and I taught creative dance as well. So I love a movement through space, time, and energy, all that, so I really want it, and I love octopuses. They’re just such an amazing beast, and they’re very smart and curious. So I wanted to make a piece that showed curiosity of the animal and also movement. So every one of her arms is actually doing something different. One of them is trying to pull a can out of a cooler. Another one is trying to ride a bicycle. Another one is grabbing a goose. Another one is holding a ball. So she’s doing all these things and moving, and she’s collected things underneath her that she would be curious about. It was also a challenge just to be able to get the skin right, and the tentacles and all that. So that was really fun because I love octopuses. So, I did work with an amazing team that helped make that happen.
Every piece has a different challenge, like the eagle that we’re doing right now is going to be really interesting. I guess that’s why I love working for Washed Ashore because every time is different, we are always learning something, and that you don’t get stuck in a rut. You know, here I have to have to create claws that are grabbing onto a fish that’s being pulled out of the water. So I’ve got to figure out how to do that and how to use the materials I have to do that. You never have the same materials twice, so it’s always a challenge.
Kimberly White
I can imagine, and I think you know again, I just love Octavia. I love the colors you used as well. It’s amazing to end now and knowing that none of that was dyed is even more impressive. It’s really is scary that all of these types of plastics are washing up.
Angela Pozzi
Yeah, yeah, it’s true. It’s true, and a lot of her is because we get these giant fish totes that wash in. They’re the, you know, if you’re a fisherman and you’re out at sea, you’ve got really rough waters, and securing things on your boat is not always easy. And when you’re in a big storm, you know, things fall off. So sometimes we get these giant coolers that their fish are either in or about to go in that wash ashore. When that cooler washed in, it was a maroon red. And because of that cooler and the lid that that also washed it, we were able to make two big sculptures out of that. One of the other ones that I think is my most exciting, challenging piece is Steve the weedy seadragon. I built him actually from scrap, I didn’t have any welded frame, and I built him myself, the whole thing myself. So, that is also one of those pieces, but because of that fish tote, we actually had another fish to come in. I was able to do both of those sculptures.
Kimberly White
So, what is the largest piece you’ve created so far?
Angela Pozzi
Well, I mean, our eagle sculpture right now has a 16 foot by nine-foot base, 16 feet, the longest we’ve ever made a sculpture. Well, that’s not true. Steve, the weedy seadragon, is 18 feet long and 10 feet tall, but he’s kind of skinny. So he might be the biggest. Then we have a polar bear on an iceberg that’s 10 feet tall, and we have Brody, the Adelie penguin is 10 feet tall. It depends how much mass I mean, who knows what’s our biggest we just go for whatever is big. We try to make it so you can’t ignore them. The other thing is, we want to make sure that they hover over people so that when you’re in a crowd, you can look and you can still see them. Or if they’re outside, where they’re compared to buildings, and you know, cars, they’re still looking big. So you have to make things really big if you’re displaying outside especially.
Kimberly White
Yes, and I imagine the size and knowing that its plastic pollution helps to provide that wake-up call for people who are viewing it.
Angela Pozzi
Oh, exactly. It’s a big problem. It needs big art. We are limited by what fits on a truck because we are a traveling exhibit. So seven feet wide is as wide as we can go. And nine feet tall is as high as we can go unless it bends over and lays down and has a hinge in it, which is what we have on a couple of our pieces. So we do have some limitations.
Kimberly White
So, Washed Ashore has engaged your local community. Can you tell us more about how you’re working with your community and how this has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic?
Angela Pozzi
Oh, COVID has been so hard for us and for our community. Everywhere, of course, but as far as keeping people involved, we still have people going to the beach on their own. We don’t do beach clean-ups as a group. But we’ve always asked people to go on their own, especially every time they go to the beach to pick up stuff; you don’t really need an organized beach clean-up. And that’s, that’s kind of funny that oftentimes people have thought they had to have one in order to go do something, you just bring a bag or a bucket whenever you go to the beach and pick it up and bring it to us. So that’s been able to continue. Our workshops have been shut down. Our exhibit hall in Bandon has been shut since March, I made that call early, and we have kept it shut. We’re a hands-on tactile interactive exhibit, so I didn’t see any way we were going to be able to stay open. Our workshops are like schools that everyone shares materials. So that also is just impossible.
The cool thing is, and something I’m really excited that I can talk to you about and to your listeners is that this eagle that we’re doing will be premiered at Norfolk Botanical Garden in Virginia this summer. We are actually starting a new program where we can involve anybody. In fact, I’m sitting in the studio, and this weekend, I’ll be working on how to make kits to send out to people so that they can be part of the project, and that is just a whole new thing for us. So we’re gonna sterilize everything before we package it. Then we’re going to have videos online that show you how to put it together, and we’ll have instructions, then people will be able to do what they’ve always done is you can say, “I helped build this bald eagle,” and then you could go see it and say, “See, I helped build that, I made one of those!” Then everyone takes ownership in it, and then they’re a part of it, and that’s a lot of who Washed Ashore is, so we want to keep that alive, and so we’re giving it a shot. I started this, and it’s actually kind of funny; I was inspired by Kelly Clarkson.
Kelly Clarkson’s show got ahold of me and was excited about Washed Ashore. They highlighted us on their show last year, and then they connected me up with a ten-year-old at the time who wanted to learn how to work with us. So I started sending her piece work, and she and her family started doing it. I did this whole instruction thing with her. So I realized, you know, well, if I can do this with her, then I can do this with anybody. So that’s what inspired us. So this little girl Ashlyn has helped us with piece work for our sturgeon, and the sturgeon is actually going to go on the Kelly Clarkson show. I think we are, too, if we can ever get through the COVID thing. So that inspired us to think that, well, maybe we should try reaching out to other people and maybe we should try doing something really important.
So the eagle is such a perfect time for us to do this right now because the eagle is a sign; it’s our symbol of the United States of America. It is a symbol of our democracy, and it is a time right now when we all need to feel unified. We’re all in this COVID world together and suffering together, and we are also, you know, to do something positive to help. A problem is something we all need to help with. So we love the idea of Washed Ashore as an organization to help create a symbol of America by America, all helping us build the bald eagle. So in the next month, if people go to our website, they’ll be able to find out more of how to be a part of the project. We’re still figuring it out right now. We’re trying to get it tested out with our local folks, and then definitely, in March, we’re gonna start reaching out across the country.
Kimberly White
That’s really exciting. I am looking forward to that. I know I will be looking for the episode with the Kelly Clarkson show. Before we go, is there anything else you’d like to share with our audience?
Angela Pozzi
Well, I guess I just want to say that plastic pollution is a really depressing topic. And it is something like I said that we can all do something about today, every day, you can do something about it. So in that regard, it does offer us hope. Again, that just like you said, your purchase is your vote. Start bringing a reusable water bottle, bring your own bag to the store, whatever you can; some places don’t allow it right now. And think about the purchases you make for gifts. Think about the packaging that is used for the gifts. You know, think about supporting your local farmers market when you can to eliminate packaging, you know, all those things, there’s so much we can do. And really, one of the things I love the most about Washed Ashore, sure there’s a lot of things, but I love the fact that our work proves that your every action adds up to do something amazing. Because all of these sculptures that you see that we’ve created would not be possible without every little tiny action that made it happen. The person who picked that thing up off the beach, the person who decided to drive it over and dump it off in our parking lot, the person who, you know, scrubbed it, the person who drilled a whole another person put a wire through it and somebody else did something else. All those things do add up, just like everything that we do add up. If we add the positives rather than negatives, we’re going in the right direction. So that’s my main message.
Kimberly White
Thank you, Angela. And thank you for joining us today. Washed Ashore, using art to raise awareness about one of our planet’s most pervasive problems-plastic pollution. And that’s it for today. Please join us next time for another episode of The Planetary Podcast.
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Today's episode features Kimberlee Centera, President and CEO of TerraPro Solutions, a risk mitigation consultancy for the development and financing of large-scale generator energy projects for public utilities and community development. The company works on complex high-value projects. TerraPro Solutions has generated over 10 GWs in renewables, making it the top risk management practice in the renewables market. Kimberlee is a respected renewable energy expert and a frequent speaker and educator at leading wind and solar conferences. She has been a guest on numerous radio programs and has provided commentary for National Public Radio’s Marketplace. Kimberlee Centera is the only female CEO of a privately held risk management consultancy in the USA.
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