Climate Conversations S2E6: Justice, Equity, and Climate Change

[00:00:00:02] TRISH WEINMANN: We began talking about climate change in the 80s when no one else was talking about it. We had a great poster, and it said climate change, is it real? Is it imminent? And the panel decided, yes, it was real, and it was imminent.

[00:00:18:23] SPEAKER 1: Welcome to climate conversations. I'm [INAUDIBLE], and today, we are interviewing Trish Weinmann, associate director of Radius. And I'm here in the studio with Laura [? Howells. ?]

[00:00:30:19] LAURA: Hey, [INAUDIBLE]. How's it going?

[00:00:31:23] SPEAKER 1: And Dave [INAUDIBLE].

[00:00:33:13] DAVE: Hi, [? Rajesh. ?] Glad to be here.

[00:00:35:16] SPEAKER 1: We're going to talk about technology, culture, climate change, justice, nuclear disarmament, and so many interesting things.

[00:00:44:01] LAURA: Yep, diving right into it.

[00:00:45:21] SPEAKER 1: Yeah, let's see what Trish has to say. Very, very happy to have Trish here in the studio with us. Welcome.

[00:00:53:23] TRISH WEINMANN: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

[00:00:55:22] SPEAKER 1: Trish, what's Radius? Radius is a place for MIT, the MIT community-- particularly students, we are focusing more on students the past few years-- but for all of the community to have a space to discuss issues surrounding social justice, equity, and the fair treatment of human beings throughout the world. We mostly focus on environmental sustainability issues, nuclear proliferation, and economic fairness.

[00:01:30:04] DAVE: Does climate change have a role in all of those discussions?

[00:01:33:10] TRISH WEINMANN: Climate change has a huge role in this discussion. Before I came over, I've been doing my own historical research into Radius, and we began talking about climate change in the 80s when no one else was talking about it or very few people were talking about it.

[00:01:52:14] DAVE: I didn't realize that.

[00:01:53:18] TRISH WEINMANN: We had a great poster, and it said climate change, is it real? Is it imminent? And the panel decided, yes, it was real, and it was eminent.

[00:02:04:12] SPEAKER 1: And when was that?

[00:02:06:05] TRISH WEINMANN: In the late 80s.

[00:02:07:21] LAURA: Wow.

[00:02:09:02] TRISH WEINMANN: Yes.

[00:02:10:02] DAVE: I think that's when James Hansen was starting to-- from NASA, was starting to make public statements, and people were really starting to wonder.

[00:02:17:24] TRISH WEINMANN: And it was still a big question. Many people said, no, we'll be fine. I love Kerry Emanuel's story. Kerry has spoken for us a number of times. He talks about his own story where at first-- for a long time he said, no, we're fine. This is all exaggerated. And then he looked at the numbers and he's a brilliant man and he looked at the science, which tells no lies, and said, OK, something is happening.

[00:02:45:15] LAURA: Nice, and so what got you involved in Radius in the first place, and what sparked your interest in that?

[00:02:50:24] TRISH WEINMANN: I was beginning graduate school in opera production and direction and needed a job, and a friend of mine worked here at MIT. And she knew I was very passionate about political issues. I would say I was woken when I was a teenager. I had the most phenomenal American history teacher, and he changed my life.

[00:03:10:25] LAURA: Wow. Wonderful.

[00:03:11:17] SPEAKER 1: Where was that?

[00:03:12:20] TRISH WEINMANN: This was on Long Island in New York. I grew up in a very traditional Catholic household. I would say my father was conservative. My mother never talked about it. So I believe they probably voted against each other in every election, but never talked about it. And I realize that there was more out there, and Mr. Cook, my history teacher, opened my eyes. And I thought, all right, there's a lot going on out here. That got me started on, I would say, social justice issues and also thinking about how economic injustice affected not only Americans but the rest of the world.

[00:03:58:05] DAVE: So how have things changed since you started at MIT and now in terms of the kinds of issues that people are talking about or you're encouraging people to talk about?

[00:04:08:04] TRISH WEINMANN: For all the years I've been here, I feel I've been incredibly fortunate and blessed to work with the Episcopal chaplain. Radius comes out of the Episcopal chaplaincy, and people are sometimes surprised about that. I would say it's the secular part of the ministry. However, the Episcopal churches mission is for social justice and the equitable treatment of all human beings, and that's how it aligns perfectly. The people with whom I've worked over the years have been inspirational. I've worked with four different chaplains through this time.

[00:04:49:08] SPEAKER 1: So have the issues remained the same? Have they changed? What's--

[00:04:53:22] TRISH WEINMANN: They've gotten worse.

[00:04:56:12] SPEAKER 1: That's not the answer we were looking for.

[00:04:58:01] TRISH WEINMANN: I'm sorry you didn't want that answer. We've-- since I started as a graduate student, I needed a job. My friends said you should meet the Episcopal chaplain. He's looking for a part time person who can do programming and maybe take on even more responsibility. And I met Scott Paradise who was a visionary in every sense of the word and saintly as well, an amazing, amazing human being.

[00:05:27:06] I went in for my interview, which lasted-- it turned into a three hour conversation, and we knew that this was the place for me and that's how it all began. Scott was looking at those-- at that time all about social issues, equity issues, economic, where would jobs go. We did a program on technology and employment 28 years ago. We were looking at issues then.

[00:05:53:12] LAURA: Very ahead of the time.

[00:05:54:02] TRISH WEINMANN: Always, way ahead of time. We always talked about the environment. Scott always talked about sustainability issues.

[00:06:00:15] SPEAKER 1: It's interesting you say that. Just this week there's a conference at MIT on AI and the future of work, so.

[00:06:08:20] TRISH WEINMANN: Although, if you look at their program, much of it is about how to leverage AI with your marketing and your business. We are planning a program in the spring that looks at AI and employment in the direction of what will be equitable? What will be fair? What will happen to people who aren't prepared for a technological job?

[00:06:30:02] DAVE: That's great.

[00:06:30:17] SPEAKER 1: Fantastic.

[00:06:31:14] DAVE: It's very encouraging to hear that.

[00:06:32:02] TRISH WEINMANN: Yes. Yeah, we're excited about that program.

[00:06:34:12] SPEAKER 1: So I feel like our listeners will really benefit from how does Radius understand technology and its impact on society? Like what is Radius' theory of technology?

[00:06:52:00] TRISH WEINMANN: If you look at our subtitle of our logo, its Radius, bringing ethics to the center of technology and science. We've always encouraged not only students, but hope that faculty as well would look at their research in a larger realm, in a global sense. Yes, Making Jones is a really cool, technological, fun thing to work on, however if you don't think ahead of what those drones will be used for, then we start to run into big problems.

[00:07:27:18] And it's the same thing with AI. I don't know if you know Max Tegmark. He's a brilliant physicist here. He has a new book out, and he talks about the fact that we are not thinking about what AI means for the future of all of us. It's a really cool thing, and it keeps getting pushed out further and further without reflection. So back to your question-- it feels like a long time ago-- about what we do. We afford people the space to reflect, and that's what it's always been about, to take some time and stop and reflect.

[00:08:01:20] SPEAKER 1: It's like a meditation on technology, right.

[00:08:04:18] TRISH WEINMANN: Yes, yes.

[00:08:06:05] LAURA: And do you find that off the back of these meditations and these discussions, is there action?

[00:08:12:08] TRISH WEINMANN: That's a great-- that's a great question. For so many years, we had these amazing programs, and I would sit in the back and get more and more depressed. And I thought-- I thought we have to do something about this. We dump all this depressing information at people, and then you're paralyzed. We decided to always have an action component to our program.

[00:08:34:12] LAURA: Fantastic.

[00:08:35:05] TRISH WEINMANN: Even if it's as simple as providing postcards for people to send to their senators and reps or giving them a reading list to go further or a group on campus that they would feel that their mission resonates with them.

[00:08:51:07] DAVE: So what's the hook for students? Why would they think, yeah, this is something I want to spend time doing from a very busy, intense, demanding MIT calendar of classes and research and other things?

[00:09:04:28] TRISH WEINMANN: There are so many programs. If you look on the MIT calendar, how do I-- how do I choose?

[00:09:10:05] DAVE: Right. Right.

[00:09:11:03] TRISH WEINMANN: For us, the biggest challenge is getting people in the room who aren't thinking about it. We can get people who are thinking about it, and we all go and make each other feel like we have company. But the real challenge is getting people into the room that perhaps haven't thought about those things before.

[00:09:28:01] One of the things we do is offer an undergrad ethics seminar in the spring. And it's a freewheeling Tuesday night dinner, minimal homework, minimal reading--

[00:09:42:08] DAVE: Free food.

[00:09:42:26] TRISH WEINMANN: Free food, nice dinner.

[00:09:45:00] SPEAKER 1: That's your answer.

[00:09:47:05] TRISH WEINMANN: Free food, we always offer free food.

[00:09:50:09] DAVE: Offer free food.

[00:09:52:00] TRISH WEINMANN: It's a big part of the budget. We offer this seminar through the philosophy department, and we talk about ethical issues in your life. So some of them are huge like climate change. Some are simpler as what kind of water am my drinking. Am I buying bottled water? Why? What does that mean for cultures and societies in India, in Michigan, in Oregon when water supplies are being depleted by Coca-Cola. Those kinds of issues, where do your clothes come from? Should I eat meat? Should I only eat it once a week? Those kinds of questions start to get them thinking.

[00:10:30:20] SPEAKER 1: And is there a moment when people click, or is it an ongoing process? Like, it reminds me of you know Paul's conversion to the Christian faith, right. So how does it happen?

[00:10:45:14] TRISH WEINMANN: It's, I would say, a slower process.

[00:10:47:25] SPEAKER 1: OK.

[00:10:48:13] TRISH WEINMANN: And I think we're also very shy to admit that you've had this huge revelation. It feels very courageous to say, whoa, wait a second. I've just had this thought. It's more of a gradual awakening.

[00:11:08:18] LAURA: Especially when that thought is reliant on someone then possibly changing their entire view about most of the things they do in their personal life and their-- the way they deal with the world.

[00:11:16:24] TRISH WEINMANN: Yes, we did have a, woah, moment a couple of years ago. We were in this ethics seminar. We had brought in someone to talk about climate change, and it was the brilliant John Sterman. And if he hasn't been on, he needs to be. John for me is one of the most inspirational people whom I've ever met. He not only talks about climate change, and he and his graduate students have created these incredible models where you can instantly see--

[00:11:43:18] DAVE: Climate interactives, all that stuff.

[00:11:44:11] TRISH WEINMANN: Yes, what will happen if we bring it down to this now. And what if India does this and China does that? But he tells the very inspirational story of how slavery began to be abolished in England, because England abolished slavery many, many years before we did. He talked about climate change, and there was a student there who you could tell the whole time was not buying it.

[00:12:08:20] The next week he came in, and he said to me, Trish, this climate change is, it's real. And I said, probably. And I said, what happened? And he said my father always told me, don't worry. They make a big deal about it. It's nothing. And I believed him. He said, but I've been crunching numbers all week, typical MIT. I love it. I've been crunching numbers and researching all week, and it's real. That was-- that was a big conversion. That was one week, which I think is pretty spectacular.

[00:12:43:10] DAVE: And maybe he told some of his friends.

[00:12:45:07] TRISH WEINMANN: I think he did.

[00:12:46:06] DAVE: Yeah.

[00:12:46:16] TRISH WEINMANN: I think he did.

[00:12:47:03] SPEAKER 1: Or maybe even his dad. Now that would be--

[00:12:49:04] TRISH WEINMANN: Depends on their relationship.

[00:12:54:06] SPEAKER 1: Yeah.

[00:12:55:16] DAVE: So have you and others in Radius been in touch with any of the folks in Fossil Free MIT or other groups around campus that are grappling with climate change issues.

[00:13:05:27] TRISH WEINMANN: Yes, we work-- especially last year, we worked very closely with Fossil Free. They were ramping things up, and it's always helpful for a student group to have some administrative support and that's what we can provide in addition to some funding. Almost a year ago now, there was the dinner conversation. It was ethics of climate change.

[00:13:28:15] DAVE: Oh, yes.

[00:13:30:04] TRISH WEINMANN: Walker was full. It was packed.

[00:13:33:28] DAVE: I was there.

[00:13:34:17] TRISH WEINMANN: You were there.

[00:13:35:06] DAVE: It was very impressive.

[00:13:36:00] TRISH WEINMANN: It was thrilling. It was thrilling

[00:13:37:02] DAVE: Yeah, great panel.

[00:13:38:02] TRISH WEINMANN: Fabulous panel. Fabulous speaker. What I loved about Fossil Free is that they began to look beyond the climate change issue and looking into justice issues, justice and the environment. So last semester in the spring we co-hosted with them a number of programs that looked at the injustice that goes along with environmental degradation.

[00:14:01:13] DAVE: And we videotaped [INAUDIBLE] Lopez who was very involved in that, and Jeremy Pondexter did a podcast with us a few months back.

[00:14:10:14] TRISH WEINMANN: They're wonderful. There's also a post-grade Patrick Brown.

[00:14:13:10] SPEAKER 1: Yes.

[00:14:13:20] DAVE: Oh yes.

[00:14:14:00] TRISH WEINMANN: And Patrick-- all of them, I admire them, and I'm very fond of all of them.

[00:14:20:15] SPEAKER 1: So let me see. You provide free food. You give me administration support, and you have money. How can I join up?

[00:14:33:02] TRISH WEINMANN: Except for the ethics seminar, which is for undergrads, all of our programs are open to the public.

[00:14:38:09] LAURA: Great

[00:14:39:07] TRISH WEINMANN: And free.

[00:14:40:11] LAURA: Oh even better.

[00:14:41:06] TRISH WEINMANN: Yep.

[00:14:41:20] SPEAKER 1: What have been some memorable programs you've done?

[00:14:44:17] TRISH WEINMANN: There are myriad, I would say, at this point, because I've been here so long. The climate change conversation, that first one was extremely memorable, because it felt like, OK, this is out now. We're out with this. The other programs we've had, there have been many on nuclear-- we haven't even talked about the nuclear issue.

[00:15:08:14] Radius has been examining these issues since it started. Where are we going? Nuclear proliferation. Some of our board members, someone like Phil Morrison, Philip Morrison, he was on our steering committee for, as far as I'm concerned, forever until he passed away. And he was worked on the Manhattan Project, and after that he did everything he could to stop the proliferation. He knew that we were going in the wrong direction.

[00:15:38:09] And other programs, we've brought-- and this is before my time-- but union workers, auto workers to talk about what was happening to unions, because even then, even 30 years ago unions were starting to be weakened. It had begun. And we've done a lot of programming on corporate influence both in politics and the way people think.

[00:16:05:13] DAVE: Any connections in that regard to climate change at the institute?

[00:16:09:18] TRISH WEINMANN: You can't help but make those connections. I think if you look at international corporations and how they're influencing everything that happens, it's breathtaking. It literally takes away your breath.

[00:16:24:07] DAVE: Sure.

[00:16:26:00] SPEAKER 1: Yep, and then they'll sell it to you for a price, right. You said that you are looking at students as your primary constituency. They're young. They have a long life ahead, and yet these are some of the biggest issues and challenges that they will face and it'll be sadly, there are a lot to endure that. How does Radius approach that issue?

[00:16:51:29] TRISH WEINMANN: I think it's important. You brought up before the issue of action, how to feel empowered to take action. That's why I love the Fossil Free movement at MIT, because they host their weekly dinners, they host programming. There were many demonstrate demonstrations in the spring, and they helped organize all of those, get people to Washington or at least make sure. We would feed them bagels and get them down to the common.

[00:17:19:05] Those kinds of activities where you feel like, all right, we can do something. Otherwise, you look at facts alone, and you become overwhelmed and paralyzed. But to join forces with other people and say, we can-- we can make a difference.

[00:17:37:03] DAVE: So really creating avenues for agency, I guess you might call it, something like that.

[00:17:41:04] TRISH WEINMANN: Yes. Yes.

[00:17:42:17] LAURA: So what does the future of Radius look like to you? What do you want to see going forward?

[00:17:48:08] TRISH WEINMANN: I would love to see an increasing reach for at least our community with students to know we're there for them to help in any way. I also mentor a small group of students who are working on nuclear issues. That is a way to help them-- first of all, let them know that there are people here who care, and people who are willing to say, yes, there are issues and they are going to affect you and we're here to help in any way we can.

[00:18:24:26] DAVE: Do you sometimes create connections or networks with faculty or researchers or anybody else in the MIT-- alumns in the MIT community?

[00:18:33:06] TRISH WEINMANN: I think those connections start to happen naturally with people in the room. That happens quite often. And I love bringing in people for the ethics seminar. We have-- almost every week we have a different speaker, and that also creates connections. I brought in a friend of mine to talk about racism. The title of his talk is-- and he has a Ted Talk-- talking about race with truth and dignity and making that connection for the students. That's a voice that they're not probably going to hear.

[00:19:07:18] David is executive director of Arts Emerson. He was a former student of mine, an opera student. And to make that connection, the students were thrilled to meet him, but also be able to follow up with him on questions they had on how they could approach talking about racism.

[00:19:26:17] DAVE: That's fabulous that you're giving the students that access that they might not otherwise have.

[00:19:31:22] TRISH WEINMANN: And someone like John Sterman, he comes every year to class. He's there for those students.

[00:19:38:24] SPEAKER 1: Fantastic. So we've talked about technology. We've talked about justice, and we also know that you have an interest in the arts. So how do the arts help bring technology and justice together?

[00:19:57:18] TRISH WEINMANN: I think one of the most powerful avenues to reach people, to communicate on a level that perhaps words can't, you can do through the arts. And I'm not a visual artist, so I can't speak to that. But I was trained as a pianist, and I am an opera stage director. And as my role as an opera stage director, I'm a storyteller, and communication is the most important part of that job. The arts have the advantage, again, of being able to cross certain borders that otherwise you wouldn't be able to and express things.

[00:20:38:28] For instance, I'm involved in a production that's happening in January, and it's not about technology but it's about another justice issue. It's about the trans experience. And the way the opera is written-- it's called As One-- it, the music itself helps you learn about the character, the sense of the music. And then seeing the characters-- it's two characters male, female-- before and after, the before [? Hannah, ?] after [? Hannah, ?] you get in under the skin of that person and can experience it in a way-- you're transported.

[00:21:19:06] It's different than books or literature. I'm a huge reader literature does that as well good. Any good storytelling does that. But there's something magical about adding music. Music adds this layer that goes into your heart and touches you, and it resonates. So you say I am part of that human story. And I feel like that's what's missing in so much of our lives is connection, empathy, being in a room together, and experiencing something and having the spaciousness to do it. And that's what the arts can do.

[00:21:56:29] SPEAKER 1: Don't you feel like technology these days is making it worse? Meaning that, the screens that are in front of us are actually making it harder for us to be in the same room together. Even-- and even when we are physically in the same room, we are often mentally in separate, like, little containers.

[00:22:15:25] DAVE: On our devices or whatever at hand.

[00:22:17:21] TRISH WEINMANN: Yes. We are co-hosting a dinner workshop next week with the Public Service Center and D-lab, and it's going to be helping students who are interested in going out or already involved in development somewhere in the developing world doing-- places in our own country. The workshop is about power and feeling that balance of power. You can't share power unless you're listening. And this is about being in a room with people and truly listening. And we are distracted. We are on those devices constantly.

[00:23:05:19] Part of the workshop is going to be a listening exercise that I've gotten help with from a speaker we had last year, Peter Grossenbacher, a professor in Colorado. It was a very moving workshop he gave about listening that we don't take space. And we're afraid of silence, so if there is conversation, you start talking or you give up and go on your phone. Sherry Turkle has done extensive research on that, and she spoke for us last year.

[00:23:38:13] SPEAKER 1: Alone Together.

[00:23:39:09] TRISH WEINMANN: Alone Together. It's a great book. It's a great book. And I've developed my own exercise for reminding myself. Every time I interact with someone, I'm buying coffee or I'm in the grocery store, whatever it is, I make sure I make eye contact with that person. Because I realize not so much that maybe I was on my phone, but heads are down, packing groceries, getting everything done, putting your credit card in, and you say thank you, but you never-- I realize I was sometimes never making eye contact with that other person. That's my new discipline.

[00:24:18:22] LAURA: I think that's a fantastic way to approach things.

[00:24:21:17] TRISH WEINMANN: It's easy. It's easy to do, but it's--

[00:24:25:10] LAURA: You have to be conscious of it first.

[00:24:26:23] TRISH WEINMANN: Yes, the awareness has to be there.

[00:24:27:12] LAURA: It's so easy to be unaware of that.

[00:24:28:18] TRISH WEINMANN: Yes, I feel like we're all walking around completely unaware. Well,

[00:24:33:04] DAVE: And also we're demonizing the other people. Whatever opinion-- you disagree with me, you're a bully or you're you're terrible or you're awful, instead of trying to engage with that person and figure out what connections we might have around which we could have a genuine and deeply felt conversation.

[00:24:51:18] TRISH WEINMANN: Conversation.

[00:24:52:12] DAVE: Yeah. It's harder and harder these days, I think, to do.

[00:24:55:20] TRISH WEINMANN: It is. This semester we're co-hosting-- I only consider myself a host for this class, because Justin [INAUDIBLE] who's a brilliant philosophy professor here at MIT is teaching it-- and it's called language information and power. It's fascinating. The readings are a little deeper than I thought they would be, but I am keeping up so far.

[00:25:16:11] LAURA: Nice.

[00:25:16:23] TRISH WEINMANN: We talk about this a lot that many times we just shut the conversation down, because it's awkward or we don't know how to listen anymore. We don't know how to set-- let somebody say their piece and stop making judgments on it immediately or creating your response already in your head and not listening to them. And so we talk about that a lot, how to create those conversations and not shutting people down or off.

[00:25:49:10] LAURA: It's an innate feeling that the thing you have to say is more important than what's already being said, and therefore I need to say it before anyone else speaks. I think it's such a tough thing to overcome. I think it's one of those things that you're not naturally taught the way you are with a lot of other socializing human skills. I didn't feel like that's something that we're taught enough anymore.

[00:26:08:24] TRISH WEINMANN: No I don't think we are to listen. And to tolerate silence, Americans have very little tolerance for silence.

[00:26:19:16] LAURA: There we go. We just did a pretty good job there, five seconds.

[00:26:23:04] TRISH WEINMANN: Did we? Did we? We did. We did.

[00:26:26:24] LAURA: It's tough. It is very tough sitting in a quiet room being silent.

[00:26:31:27] SPEAKER 1: It's true. What I love about Justin's classes is Justin is very comfortable with silence, and he'll throw out a complex question. And I love how the students don't feel compelled to start blurting something out. We can sit there and think sometimes maybe 10 or 15 seconds.

[00:26:54:04] DAVE: Wow.

[00:26:54:24] TRISH WEINMANN: And everyone's--

[00:26:55:19] DAVE: An eternity.

[00:26:56:25] TRISH WEINMANN: Everyone's OK with that. I love how that's been developing. It's been growing over the semester. And it's all right not to be able to answer something right away.

[00:27:10:04] DAVE: It's really hard at MIT.

[00:27:11:18] TRISH WEINMANN: It is.

[00:27:12:02] LAURA: That's a very hard thing to learn.

[00:27:12:26] DAVE: Very hard, because you want to be right. You want to get their argument down, and you want the other person to lose.

[00:27:19:06] TRISH WEINMANN: Or at least you want to show people how smart you are, how knowledgeable you are. Sometimes people will say to me, well, I feel like I have to answer right away so they don't think I don't know the answer.

[00:27:34:12] DAVE: Not knowing is really scary sometimes.

[00:27:36:06] TRISH WEINMANN: It is really scary. It is.

[00:27:38:17] LAURA: So when people come in and get involved in Radius, and they join a program, they listen to talk, what do you want them to come out with at the end? What's there? We've talked about action. You'd love for them to actually be able to go and do something with it. What skill or ability or knowledge do you want them to take away?

[00:27:57:23] TRISH WEINMANN: I've probably said this already, but I want them to know that there are people here who care. The other thing is hope.

[00:28:06:07] LAURA: Which is so difficult when it's the subject matter you, kind of, discuss when you're talking about climate change. It's such a difficult subject to be hopeful about and to not just be, kind of, depressed, kind of, hopeless about, like, you don't know what you can do to fix it.

[00:28:18:29] DAVE: And turn away from it.

[00:28:20:09] LAURA: Absolutely. I think that's an initial reaction. I don't think I can do anything, so I'm not going to bother trying.

[00:28:23:27] TRISH WEINMANN: Right, I'm not doing anything at all, that paralyzing feeling. Or denial, I'm just going make believe it's not happening. Human beings are so beautiful at denial. Al Gore once said, denial ain't just a river in Egypt. It's a way we live. You can't get by without some denial, but at one point, you really have to face it.

[00:28:48:24] LAURA: Yeah.

[00:28:50:02] SPEAKER 1: We always end with a magic wand question, and the magic wand question is if you had a magic wand, so I'm handing you one.

[00:28:58:15] TRISH WEINMANN: Thank you.

[00:28:59:06] SPEAKER 1: There you go. And you can wave it and you can make the world a better place for climate, what would you do?

[00:29:06:29] TRISH WEINMANN: I would change the dynamics of greed. Greed I believe drives all of our pressing issues of the day, and it doesn't necessarily have to be greed for material goods. It's greed for power, and the grabbing of power is a type of greed. If I could open people's hearts to generosity and the sharing of power, that would be my wish.

[00:29:46:24] SPEAKER 1: Fantastic.

[00:29:47:12] LAURA: I love that, a very heartfelt wish.

[00:29:49:09] SPEAKER 1: Thank you so much.

[00:29:51:04] LAURA: Yeah, thank you for joining us. That was wonderful.

[00:29:52:15] DAVE: We really appreciate it.

[00:29:52:24] TRISH WEINMANN: Thank you

[00:29:55:14] DAVE: So I was really impressed with what Trish had to say particularly since she's talking about addressing students and members of the MIT community about delicate subjects, things like ethics and grappling with really difficult issues like nuclear disarmament and climate change.

[00:30:13:11] SPEAKER 1: Yeah, and those seminars, I think a lot of us want to go to those seminars.

[00:30:17:14] DAVE: Yeah, I'm ready to sign up right now.

[00:30:20:00] LAURA: Yeah, I'm sneaking into all of them.

[00:30:21:05] SPEAKER 1: But like all good things, this one too must come to an end.

[00:30:25:03] LAURA: Yeah, but we would love to hear from you. And if you've got any conversations that you want us to have around climate change and justice, please do you reach out to us. You can email us at climax@MIT.edu or you can find us on Twitter or Facebook.

[00:30:39:03] SPEAKER 1: Thank you so much for listening.

[00:30:40:09] LAURA: Thanks guys, see you next week.

[00:30:41:20] DAVE: Bye bye.

[00:30:42:01] [MUSIC PLAYING]