TRIGGERnometry - Ex-Climate Activist Speaks Out - Lucy Biggers

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00:01:00.000 I'm on the right side of history. 1.00

00:01:03.680 I'm atoning for being descended

00:01:05.880 from this oppressive group of people.

00:01:07.580 And so it was all in my psychology

00:01:09.900 a way to be a good person.

00:01:11.960 I gave AOC one of her first interviews.

00:01:14.580 I interviewed Greta Thunberg. 0.82

00:01:15.820 And look at her now.

00:01:16.660 I mean, I feel like she's lost the plot.

00:01:19.200 I didn't know, like, how bad Stalin and Mao were.

00:01:22.400 I did not know.

00:01:23.360 I didn't know.

00:01:24.180 I really thought that, like,

00:01:25.420 we were just the worst country,

00:01:27.200 which is really...

00:01:27.860 It's so sad. 1.00

00:01:30.000 I truly was the definition of a useful idiot. 1.00

00:01:32.440 It's like I have 10 years to live. 1.00

00:01:33.840 It's kind of brainwashing, isn't it?

00:01:35.620 Yeah, I think it's brainwashing, and I'll be even more hyperbolic.

00:01:38.500 I say it's a crime against humanity.

00:01:40.460 Can you win those people over?

00:01:42.120 We can win them over.

00:01:43.220 I think we're moving out of this emotional heightened space.

00:01:46.000 What?

00:01:46.640 I think we are.

00:01:47.540 What?

00:01:48.040 I don't think it's getting worse because of social media

00:01:50.180 and because of Trump derangement syndrome for the last 10 years.

00:01:52.820 I think it's like something's got to give.

00:01:57.540 Lucy, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:01:59.400 Thank you so much for having me.

00:02:00.420 I'm so excited to be here.

00:02:01.600 Oh, it's great to have you.

00:02:02.660 You were a climate activist and you're not anymore.

00:02:06.120 You have a very interesting story to tell.

00:02:08.860 So why don't we just get started there?

00:02:10.720 What is your story?

00:02:11.940 Yeah, so I was a climate activist for half my 20s.

00:02:14.400 So that was from 2016 to around 2020.

00:02:19.300 And I fell into it because at that time,

00:02:22.220 I was a video producer at a very left-wing news company

00:02:25.260 called Now This News, which some people know it,

00:02:27.360 some people don't.

00:02:27.980 but we were one of the first news companies to get videos

00:02:30.740 to automatically play on the Facebook feed

00:02:33.060 back in the 20-teens with subtitles.

00:02:35.740 So I moved into that newsroom as a 25-year-old,

00:02:39.480 and my job every day was just to be scrolling on my newsfeed,

00:02:43.740 which now we know about this, right?

00:02:45.260 It's like doom scrolling and our algorithms,

00:02:46.840 but that was where I first got exposed

00:02:49.220 to this modern climate movement

00:02:52.340 in the form of actually this Dakota Access Pipeline protest

00:02:56.580 that happened in 2016, which was very viral,

00:02:58.920 where there was Native Americans protesting a pipeline going in.

00:03:02.260 And all these people commenting would say,

00:03:05.420 cover DAPL, D-A-P-L, for Dakota Access Pipeline.

00:03:08.420 And so I just started covering that as a 25-year-old,

00:03:11.260 kind of bought it hook, line, and sinker

00:03:13.300 that there was this narrative

00:03:14.440 that these evil fossil fuel companies

00:03:15.900 are building a pipeline on indigenous land.

00:03:18.260 And I started covering it,

00:03:20.400 and all the videos that I made went really viral.

00:03:23.100 And so there was a feedback loop of,

00:03:25.100 of I'm getting a lot of professional success from this.

00:03:27.940 And so I just made climate change

00:03:29.980 my kind of whole personality and beat for my 20s,

00:03:33.940 eventually growing my following to 50,000 on Instagram

00:03:37.440 by like 2019.

00:03:39.940 I interviewed Greta Thunberg, I interviewed,

00:03:42.280 I gave AOC one of her first interviews

00:03:44.480 when she was running for Congress in 2017,

00:03:47.960 and that went very viral.

00:03:49.260 So I was very much entrenched in the very progressive

00:03:52.260 and progressive like political movement,

00:03:54.460 and then also the climate stuff from the center of this newsroom, essentially.

00:04:00.640 Yeah, so that was how I basically spent half my 20s,

00:04:02.760 kind of just buying everything as it was sold to me,

00:04:05.220 never really investigating, watched a few documentaries

00:04:07.940 that honestly convinced me that this was an existential threat

00:04:11.500 and did not have a deep understanding of the science.

00:04:15.620 And to the point where I'll just anecdotally say,

00:04:17.880 like, in 2019, I learned that CO2 was only 0.04% of the atmosphere.

00:04:23.040 Up until that point, I'd been covering the climate for four years, and I didn't even know what percent of the atmosphere CO2 was.

00:04:29.320 So that was how, like, turned off my critical thinking was, because I was getting so much support from being part of this movement that I just pushed it, right?

00:04:39.320 And that was five years of my career.

00:04:41.980 And, you know, I've listened to a bunch of interviews Frances has as well that you've done.

00:04:45.920 You're clearly an intelligent, very intelligent person.

00:04:48.340 Thank you.

00:04:49.080 I mean, I'm a little naive.

00:04:50.380 No, no, we didn't bring you here to humiliate you.

00:04:52.780 No, it's important, though, because I think it's like showing how someone, even if you're intelligent, thank you, can turn your critical thinking off when you're in group think.

00:05:00.260 So this is what I was going to ask you. Why do you think you were and people are susceptible to this thing, even if they are smart and are capable of thinking things through and using critical thinking in another context?

00:05:13.420 Yeah, so, I think there's a confluence of things,

00:05:17.000 of timing, and my generation, and technology, and politics,

00:05:20.800 because, again, I'm a millennial, I'm, like, the perfect...

00:05:23.840 I was born in 1990, so this is my mid-20s, it's 20 teens,

00:05:27.140 social media's picking up, I'm scrolling on my algorithm,

00:05:30.180 which we did not really understand

00:05:32.180 how those things worked then, right?

00:05:33.740 I feel like I was, like, patient zero of some of this stuff,

00:05:36.280 and I was also, at the same time,

00:05:37.620 working in a very left-wing newsroom,

00:05:39.720 which cannot be separated from my story,

00:05:41.580 because while I was at that newsroom,

00:05:44.880 so it's 2015 I started,

00:05:46.580 and then 2016, Trump's rise is happening.

00:05:49.640 We're all Bernie supporters.

00:05:51.900 Trump gets elected,

00:05:53.100 and kind of everyone goes crazy, right?

00:05:55.100 We've now been living with this for 10 years,

00:05:56.620 especially on the left,

00:05:57.660 and it became a lot about identity politics.

00:06:00.040 That kind of came into the newsroom

00:06:01.600 over the Slack, over social media,

00:06:03.800 and so I'm...

00:06:04.780 Give us some examples.

00:06:05.900 Like, what do you mean?

00:06:06.280 Just, like, the idea of, like, everyone... 0.82

00:06:08.120 Like, everyone who's white is a white supremacist,

00:06:10.220 even if they don't know it, 0.97

00:06:11.240 you're racist so like you should really question what you believe because more often than not 0.91

00:06:15.820 you're racist you have cisgender privilege and did you think this when this was happening were 0.99

00:06:21.500 you like actually i am you know i must be a white supremacist i literally was just like i guess this 0.99

00:06:25.780 is what is true like i was just like i'm going to listen to bipoc you know which is like poc's 0.73

00:06:32.900 people of color i'm going to listen to other people's perspectives and i'm going to sit down 0.53

00:06:36.960 and shut up, essentially, to listen to what other people have to say.

00:06:42.020 And not that there's anything wrong.

00:06:43.000 Obviously, I think, historically,

00:06:44.560 minority voices have been excluded from conversation.

00:06:48.820 So, like, there's seeds of truth, right?

00:06:50.400 But it just took it such to a degree where, you know,

00:06:53.020 we threw out the idea of the MLK would say

00:06:55.280 you should be judged by the content of your character,

00:06:57.260 not the color of your skin.

00:06:58.380 That was out the window. 1.00

00:06:59.700 And it was like everyone who's white and cisgender

00:07:01.660 and privileged doesn't have a perspective here.

00:07:05.380 So anyway, that's the culture of the newsroom.

00:07:07.580 Not that anyone's like a gun to my head being like,

00:07:09.500 you must believe this,

00:07:10.740 but it was just the water that I was swimming in.

00:07:13.980 And I want to be a good person.

00:07:15.500 I'm not inoculated against these ideas

00:07:17.240 coming out of the American education system.

00:07:19.500 And we have social media online for the first time.

00:07:21.760 So it's not like my parents can warn me

00:07:23.340 of how these things work.

00:07:25.320 Throw in the Slack channel where everyone group messages.

00:07:28.080 So it's public messaging.

00:07:29.520 And you very quickly just get a culture

00:07:31.360 that's very ideological in the newsroom.

00:07:34.600 And so I just bought into everything because I wanted to be a good ally.

00:07:40.380 And I'm looking around at the ideology as it's really picking up in the 2017 post-Trump elected.

00:07:48.080 And it's saying, like, if you're a white person, if you're an American, if you're straight, you have all these privileges.

00:07:55.120 And so, to me, the climate movement was a perfect way to atone for the sins of my birth as being a privileged person.

00:08:01.700 I can represent the indigenous Native Americans

00:08:05.040 who have been historically oppressed.

00:08:07.380 I can now help them.

00:08:08.700 So now I'm on the right side of history. 1.00

00:08:10.200 I'm atoning for being descended

00:08:12.540 from this oppressive group of people.

00:08:14.320 And so it was all in my psychology

00:08:16.640 a way to be a good person and fit in with the group,

00:08:19.920 which I felt wasn't gonna accept me 0.61

00:08:23.460 if I was just like a normal white person

00:08:25.100 who was like, actually, this country is worth defending.

00:08:27.100 Actually, I'm not racist.

00:08:28.260 Like, I was never gonna say that stuff

00:08:29.720 because I would get my head chopped off by the group think,

00:08:33.500 even if it was never an over correct, right?

00:08:35.500 How do you know that you would have been attacked

00:08:38.160 if you'd said that?

00:08:38.940 Because you would just see in the Slack channel

00:08:41.680 what was an appropriate opinion to have

00:08:44.480 and anything that was slightly moderate

00:08:46.380 or pushing against this would very much get shouted down

00:08:50.200 by the vocal, most vocal, most extreme groups

00:08:53.620 in the, you know, most vocal employees in the group.

00:08:57.420 And so it wasn't a conscious thing.

00:08:59.540 You know, it's just a bunch of 20-somethings

00:09:00.980 kind of just figuring out what is okay.

00:09:03.660 And again, this is a very millennial

00:09:05.660 20-something newsroom in the 20-teens.

00:09:08.540 The virus has left the lap at this point,

00:09:10.660 and I think this ideology is now at the New York Times.

00:09:13.180 We know this. It's like the woke stuff that we talk about.

00:09:16.660 But I was just in it. I didn't question it.

00:09:19.740 And it just subverted everything in my worldview, right?

00:09:22.520 Where it's like, I grew up in a two-parent household

00:09:25.000 in Connecticut, like, idyllic American life.

00:09:28.400 Like, I have family who, like, fought in the Revolutionary War,

00:09:31.360 Civil War, whatever. I have a lot of, like, national pride.

00:09:33.780 And all of a sudden, I, because of this ideology,

00:09:36.700 I was like, I can't have pride in any of that.

00:09:38.580 And I need to just kind of apologize, stay small, and, like, atone.

00:09:43.520 And, like, hopefully, they'll all be accepted by the group,

00:09:45.820 because, like, sorry, guys.

00:09:47.120 Like, so it was a very, like, sad ideology to live by,

00:09:50.580 but I think that my experience is very common.

00:09:53.600 In my way of just being a good ally,

00:09:56.900 I took it out by building up this climate movement and brand.

00:10:01.480 And again, this is all in retrospect that I'm saying this.

00:10:04.580 At the time, it was all subconscious.

00:10:07.540 And only now, years later, I left that job in 2021.

00:10:12.180 I went to a non-profit for one year,

00:10:14.660 and that's when I then heard about Barry's podcast.

00:10:17.260 Barry Weiss is my boss now at the Free Press.

00:10:20.180 And she started the Free Press,

00:10:21.360 and I've been out at the Free Press since 2022.

00:10:23.600 And so that's even been more of a, like, deprogramming.

00:10:26.600 essentially um so yeah the thing that i found really interesting about this movement because

00:10:31.980 at the time i was teaching primary school so i could see some of these ideas start to creep into

00:10:37.480 primary school teaching and teaching about climate and the fact that you know the world is coming to

00:10:42.460 an end all this stuff and i remember reading about it and i stumbled on greta thunberg

00:10:46.380 and she was 15 years old at the time and as somebody who also used to teach special needs kids

00:10:51.720 I found it deeply weird that the head of this movement was a 15-year-old autistic girl.

00:11:00.020 What was your impression when you interviewed her?

00:11:02.180 And did you not find that strange as well?

00:11:04.760 Or was it something that was just accepted?

00:11:06.880 It was something that was just accepted.

00:11:08.620 In retrospect, I think it's so weird.

00:11:10.820 I think it's such a red flag.

00:11:12.900 But at the time, I think this ideology of the climate movement and the nihilism

00:11:17.360 and the apocalyptic thinking, it has a lot of religious undertones.

00:11:20.940 And so, I think Greta was accepted as, like, this beacon of hope, right?

00:11:25.080 She was a Joan of Arc character.

00:11:27.340 And this idea that the youth are unspoiled by the sins of this world.

00:11:31.620 So, she's a truth-sayer.

00:11:33.380 Um, that's how I saw her, right? 0.54

00:11:35.060 I thought she was so brave, and I did not...

00:11:39.220 I would laugh when I would see the conservative critique of her

00:11:42.260 that was like,

00:11:42.960 oh, why? Do you have a 15-year-old leading your movement?

00:11:44.860 I'd be like, oh, they just don't get it, you know?

00:11:46.740 And now, I think that's a very valid critique. 0.71

00:11:49.300 Why does a movement need a teenager to be its leader?

00:11:53.200 We're living in the real world here,

00:11:54.940 and things like our energy system

00:11:57.940 are not something that a 15-year-old,

00:11:59.740 who's never paid an energy bill in her life,

00:12:02.380 should be talking about.

00:12:04.320 But again, it was so ideological.

00:12:06.080 And so, when I met her, which was 2019, May of 2019,

00:12:12.060 I just was able to, my producer at the time,

00:12:14.720 was able to get an interview with her, which was a big get.

00:12:17.220 So we flew to Stockholm, which I put the carbon emissions

00:12:20.600 of the flight out of my mind.

00:12:21.900 I'm like, it's for the greater good.

00:12:24.000 And I interviewed her.

00:12:25.300 And the things that I took away from it the most,

00:12:28.240 it was a very professional operation, right?

00:12:30.600 Like, she brought her bike in multiple times

00:12:33.100 to get multiple shots for me and other camera crews

00:12:35.980 that were there.

00:12:36.780 I think 60 Minutes Australia was also there

00:12:39.580 and a few other outlets.

00:12:41.540 And I had a designated time with her,

00:12:43.180 only about, like, 20 minutes.

00:12:44.680 And I thought she was actually very articulate

00:12:48.260 and had a great quality, actually, about her.

00:12:50.680 She has charisma, obviously, to lead a movement like this.

00:12:53.020 And so I thought my interactions with her were lovely.

00:12:56.120 Obviously, like, the cultural divide

00:12:57.820 of, like, her being European and younger

00:13:00.220 and on the autistic spectrum,

00:13:01.440 I felt like she was a little bit more, like, serious

00:13:04.260 than, like, the American me.

00:13:05.300 I'm, like, trying to crack a joke.

00:13:06.560 I'm trying to get a smile out of her.

00:13:08.200 Not successfully, but I felt that she,

00:13:11.580 in person, was actually a lovely person.

00:13:13.400 person but again she's so young and her parents her dad was there dropped her off and then I know

00:13:17.520 he went to like a nearby coffee shop while she was doing all these shoots because to me what it

00:13:21.900 betrayed was a fundamental lack of seriousness about the movement because as somebody who wasn't

00:13:27.220 who saw themselves at the time as being on the left I had that thought as somebody who's taught

00:13:32.100 15 year old girls I was thinking to myself number one she's not an expert in anything and number two

00:13:38.260 if I'm being honest this is a fundamental act of cruelty putting someone so young

00:13:42.660 and turning them into a celebrity.

00:13:44.560 When you look at what happens to child stars in Hollywood,

00:13:47.380 I mean, it never normally ends well. 1.00

00:13:49.060 Yeah, and look at her now.

00:13:50.100 I mean, I feel like she's lost the plot, right?

00:13:52.580 Like, I think, yeah, and I know, like, her origin story was

00:13:55.900 she had so much anxiety about climate from, like,

00:13:58.420 I think probably watching the same documentaries

00:14:00.180 that I was watching that were very biased. 1.00

00:14:03.440 And her way to act out this anxiety was to become an activist.

00:14:08.140 And I think now as a parent, I think if that was my child,

00:14:11.060 I would be showing them counter-facts.

00:14:14.640 And there's so much out there around climate change

00:14:17.740 to paint a picture that it's not existential.

00:14:19.940 So the fact that her parents went this route of activism

00:14:23.080 is, I mean, it's a reflection, I guess,

00:14:25.080 on their values and everything.

00:14:26.280 And obviously now we see that she is very confused.

00:14:29.620 I think she was just making a video about Cuba,

00:14:31.920 and she's just basically gone full Marxist,

00:14:33.980 which is kind of, you know, there's the connections there

00:14:36.680 between climate and that movement,

00:14:38.560 so maybe not surprising.

00:14:40.180 Well, let's explore that. So what are the connections between communism, socialism,

00:14:45.300 whatever you want to call it, and the climate movement? Because there does seem to be quite

00:14:49.140 a lot of overlap.

00:14:50.980 If you own gold, you probably bought it for the same reason I did. Because you looked

00:14:55.300 at what central banks are doing to currencies and decided you wanted something they can't

00:15:00.020 print. Good reasoning. But here's the thing nobody talks about after you make that decision.

00:15:04.560 Your gold is just sitting there. It's not doing anything. You're paying to store it.

00:15:08.440 you're paying to insure it and in the meantime it earns precisely nothing until now what you're

00:15:14.120 about to hear is not a normal gold advert today's sponsor is monetary metals they've figured out

00:15:20.200 something that once you hear it seems obvious but almost nobody in the gold world is doing it

00:15:25.880 monetary metals connects gold owners with productive businesses refiners jewelers companies

00:15:32.360 that actually need physical gold to operate those businesses lease your gold and pay you a yield

00:15:38.120 not in dollars not in pounds in gold so instead of your gold sitting in a vault costing you money

00:15:44.520 it's out in the real economy doing something useful and you're earning more ounces of gold

00:15:49.960 for it up to four percent annual yield paid in gold if you already own gold this is the logical

00:15:55.640 next step visit monetary-metals.com trigonometry or click the link in the description see how your

00:16:03.240 gold can stop costing you money and start earning you more gold. That's monetary-metals.com

00:16:09.120 slash trigonometry. There's a lot of overlap that I've seen and having been in that mindset and then

00:16:15.420 gotten out, I can just say the parallels that I see. One is this idea of the intelligent bureaucrat

00:16:22.820 knowing more than the average person and that the average person is somehow stupid. They're 1.00

00:16:27.600 ignorant so like we the central planners can plan this better um and then also taking away people's 0.98

00:16:34.340 property rights in the name of a greater cause so socialism we all know is to get to equality and 0.95

00:16:40.460 climate change is to save the planet but they end up being acted out in very similar ways you need

00:16:46.340 more bloated bureaucratic government um you're always going to prevent some or you're always

00:16:51.480 trying to reach a utopia right it's like in 10 years it'll be a green utopia just we're gonna

00:16:56.140 tax you a little more. You're going to give up some of your freedoms. But in 10 years,

00:16:59.980 it's going to be utopia. So there's a lot of ideological overlap. And I think, again,

00:17:06.180 you can't be understated how un-inoculated the West is from this. Young people were not educated

00:17:11.380 properly on communism, socialism in America at all. We're taught a lot about World War II and

00:17:18.400 Hitler and stuff like that. But I never even learned about the destructiveness of communism

00:17:23.480 and socialism when I was in school

00:17:25.040 and only have had to educate myself later.

00:17:28.320 And so I think I do see the climate movement

00:17:30.360 as sort of the next iteration of that same ideology.

00:17:35.020 It's about control, but in the name of greater good.

00:17:38.000 Because, so just one final thing,

00:17:40.120 because then the climate movement

00:17:43.400 entered this really weird phase

00:17:46.120 where then it started to equate its struggle with Palestine.

00:17:50.720 No, I know it's not. 0.69

00:17:51.680 And I was still in it in the 2019s too, and like the BLM stuff was coming in 2020,

00:17:58.260 then it was all about like, everything is social justice. 0.53

00:18:01.520 And it's all about the global North has been oppressing the global South and Western imperialism.

00:18:06.320 And it really like the, I'm not trying to think of the word.

00:18:11.440 It's like they expose themselves to what they truly were, right?

00:18:16.560 Like the mask came off is what I was trying to say,

00:18:20.580 is that the mask really came off, I think,

00:18:22.920 and you started to realize around 2020,

00:18:24.740 at least for me, I'm like, wait a minute.

00:18:25.980 I thought we were like trying to recycle here

00:18:27.900 and like maybe put in a few solar panels.

00:18:29.940 And now I'm having to say like down with the West

00:18:32.520 and like the global North is oppressing everyone 0.71

00:18:34.580 in the global South, very black and white thinking. 0.98

00:18:37.380 And I think as the years went on,

00:18:39.480 like the overlaps between those ideologies

00:18:41.380 like got more and more and more.

00:18:43.220 Then maybe when I entered it again in the 2015, 2016, 0.99

00:18:47.740 I truly was the definition of a useful idiot. 0.99

00:18:49.720 I was just ignorant. I was trying to do good. I really just was a well-meaning young person who 1.00

00:18:55.140 wanted to be on the right side of history, wanted to have my impact. I felt like there was an

00:19:00.220 injustice. In this case, evil fossil fuels were taking advantage of a Native American tribe. And

00:19:05.340 it was a very black and white story for me. And then as the movement went on, I started to see

00:19:12.760 everything that we're talking about.

00:19:14.780 Lucian, where did you get this idea that to be on the right side of history was to be on this side?

00:19:19.720 Yeah, I think that for my generation, the millennials, I'm now 35 and I'm 25 at that

00:19:28.900 time. You have to think about the context that we were growing up in, which was the financial

00:19:32.920 crisis in 2008, which happened under Bush, the forever wars. And so we're a very liberal

00:19:38.240 generation and we never lived through like Reagan, right? Like, so we just basically-

00:19:44.020 I love the way she's pointing me. I didn't live through Reagan either, with all fucking respect. 0.97

00:19:47.520 you guys are why am i like assuming wait we're elderly millennials like reagan like your favorite 0.97

00:19:53.680 president yeah yeah maybe it's because your opinions are just so mature guys that's right

00:19:59.180 you can you can weasel out of this all you want when you were in high school when you were in

00:20:05.960 high school when reagan was in office no i'm just kidding but i guess my point is like maybe because

00:20:10.640 okay i don't know i feel really bad now to like age bias you guys lucy i'm messing with you i

00:20:16.060 actually think this is a really interesting point, because

00:20:18.120 we are a little bit older than you.

00:20:21.000 A little, just a little.

00:20:22.280 Well, probably about eight years.

00:20:24.460 We don't have to be public about it.

00:20:27.440 When we

00:20:28.120 were at school, I actually

00:20:30.280 don't remember being

00:20:32.260 taught anything that would

00:20:33.960 predispose me to this kind of world

00:20:36.140 view. Right.

00:20:37.460 I went to school in England, so it may be a bit different.

00:20:40.340 I guess what I'm guessing at is

00:20:42.000 you mentioned that the American education

00:20:43.920 system, A, didn't prepare you to be critically thinking about some of these things, but did it

00:20:49.580 also prepare you for the view that you just described, which is this is the right side of

00:20:55.680 history? Were you being told about, you know, climate change is about to destroy the planet

00:20:59.780 and all this kind of stuff at school? Right. Well, yeah. And again, I graduated from high

00:21:03.440 school in 2008. So then I'm even kind of young. I'm kind of the end of the millennial. And I think

00:21:07.780 there's the generation after me is even worse with some of this stuff because I got out of

00:21:12.900 by 2012, and I will say, like, we're 9-11 kids.

00:21:16.100 We're, like, we were 11 when 9-11 happened.

00:21:18.140 And when Osama bin Laden got shot,

00:21:21.040 we had a party at my college because we were so excited.

00:21:23.740 So we were very much still...

00:21:25.040 It was, like, now there'd be probably, like,

00:21:26.740 a eulogy for him or something.

00:21:28.920 So, I mean, even I was kind of a transition generation

00:21:31.380 to what this younger generation has been even fed.

00:21:33.800 But I will say, I think the context of, for me,

00:21:37.040 and maybe just not being inoculated against this

00:21:38.840 at my home and at school was, like,

00:21:41.580 obviously, Obama is the hope president.

00:21:44.740 Obviously, Bush is bad.

00:21:46.520 Look at the forever wars.

00:21:47.460 Look at the financial crisis.

00:21:48.860 Look at income inequality.

00:21:50.040 And so I was just sort of your basic millennial liberal

00:21:52.820 because that was just the path of least resistance.

00:21:55.680 And everyone who was conservative,

00:21:57.100 I just kind of thought was like old schooler.

00:21:59.620 They didn't get it.

00:22:00.600 And I never was articulated to in a way

00:22:03.280 that made me feel like I should be on that side.

00:22:06.060 And only after being on the left for so long

00:22:08.420 and seeing it go completely crazy

00:22:10.140 was I like, hold on.

00:22:11.220 I need to, like, get out of here.

00:22:13.200 And, like, basically, essentially re-educate myself.

00:22:16.840 And I don't know.

00:22:18.900 There was enough cognitive dissonance, obviously, though,

00:22:20.880 that, like, I was able to leave the movement

00:22:22.940 and I chose to work for Barry,

00:22:24.620 which is, like, not exactly a safe choice.

00:22:29.240 And then I will say, being now at the Free Press

00:22:30.860 for three years, and you know all of our contributors,

00:22:32.660 our writers, Douglas Murray, Neil Ferguson,

00:22:34.600 all these people who, like, now they're household names to me,

00:22:37.880 and I, you know, now know all their work,

00:22:39.900 And that also helped re-educate me because even coming into the free press, I was still questioning, right?

00:22:46.400 It's like, this is a very long process. Like I, I stopped posting on my social media as a climate influencer in 2020.

00:22:53.640 And then I've had, um, my son in 2022 and I was at a nonprofit.

00:22:59.100 Then I came to the free press end of 2022, had another son in 2024.

00:23:02.820 And I didn't start posting publicly about my new opinions until 2025, but questioning the whole time.

00:23:08.260 And I said before the cameras were rolling,

00:23:09.600 I remember seeing your guys' videos in 2020,

00:23:11.640 and I really liked the name Trigonometry

00:23:13.420 because I knew that everyone in my circle

00:23:15.940 was triggered by everything

00:23:17.180 because everyone was such snowflakes.

00:23:19.100 But I was still thinking of myself as in the group.

00:23:22.100 And I think it can't be understated

00:23:25.040 how much it takes to extract yourself from that.

00:23:29.540 And I think now it kind of all ties in.

00:23:32.300 Like, my cause is climate, right?

00:23:33.760 And we'll talk more about that.

00:23:35.240 But I think you look at the activism now,

00:23:37.300 and it feels like every six months, there's a new cause du jour. And a lot of young women,

00:23:42.280 mothers and people of my demographic are getting whipped up every few months. What's the new thing 0.86

00:23:47.180 that you're going to freak out about? And so my experience is just one, but it continues on.

00:23:55.460 Of course. Yeah. And by the way, the reason I'm digging into why you had the views that you had

00:23:59.920 is I actually think, you know, I've always tried to understand where people are coming from.

00:24:04.860 It doesn't mean that I agree or accept or tolerate even, but understanding, I think, is the most important thing.

00:24:10.920 And one of the things you mentioned is kind of interesting.

00:24:13.200 You mentioned young women.

00:24:14.720 This is something that Orwell wrote about in 1984, that it is young women that tend to go for all these social, I don't know what the right word is.

00:24:25.500 Like social justice causes, essentially. 0.94

00:24:27.200 Well, right.

00:24:27.680 But also, I guess he wasn't really talking about social justice.

00:24:30.740 I think he just meant if there was a kind of social derangement in which everybody went in a particular direction, it didn't have to be about social justice necessarily.

00:24:39.740 It was just about a lot of people who hadn't thought about something critically, but felt very passionately that it was the right thing to do.

00:24:48.120 Does that match your experience with the people around you, young women?

00:24:52.600 It was a mix. It was a mix.

00:24:54.820 It was both, I think. 0.91

00:24:57.120 um but i would say in the climate movement yes many many women um and what you said about the

00:25:04.740 not critical thinking is basically everything about it and why do you think that is because i

00:25:10.680 think there's an emotional side of of women where we're very empathetic and so we see suffering and

00:25:16.340 we want to fix it and so i had a lack of boundaries of individuation between myself and what i can

00:25:24.220 control and the suffering in the world and then again social media hair seen on the fire where

00:25:29.980 we're now getting exposed to all of these different causes around the world you have to

00:25:34.560 care about everything and then if you start to say i don't want to care about something i have

00:25:38.620 an emotional boundary here the movement will say well you're privileged for having an emotional

00:25:42.560 boundary that's selfishness and so there was so many ways to hook you back in when you're in this

00:25:47.780 movement and again that's why even years after leaving i would be like on the edge like i had

00:25:52.020 to like read every single one of Douglas Murray's books to be like, I'm not crazy. Like, and re like,

00:25:57.700 um, create a foundation for myself that was not so anti West. And so just like emotionally,

00:26:03.240 like dispersed over the whole globe. I felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders,

00:26:06.980 um, with all of these different ideologies that I felt I had to push. And for me, climate was the

00:26:13.760 main one, but again, kind of everything like your textbook, very left person. So yeah, I mean,

00:26:18.960 there's so much there so well you're right there's so much there i mean the thing i'm hearing through

00:26:23.800 all of it is almost like there is a sense of pressure but there's also almost like a craving

00:26:30.080 for some kind of meaning and purpose as well is that yeah is that part of it 100 i think yeah i

00:26:35.640 think this the the social pressure to be with seen with good within the group um wanting to

00:26:43.120 have your impact on the world and to have a legacy and make a difference and um having that desire

00:26:50.740 but because of the internet and social media it's kind of dispersed over the globe versus

00:26:55.640 caring about your own community near you right your own school board or all these things again

00:27:00.980 i was younger i'm an urban new yorker at that time so i'm living i'm renting an apartment i don't

00:27:05.060 really have a stake in the game in the way that i do now um and so i fell for all this stuff and

00:27:11.540 And again, I see people that I know now in my life that I know in person, and I see them

00:27:16.480 posting, you know, the memes every few months, whether it's, it would be like the person

00:27:20.500 blows in the black square during BLM, right? 0.53

00:27:22.900 And then it's like Palestine stuff.

00:27:24.800 Then it's the anti-ice stuff, right?

00:27:26.560 And you can care about immigration and all these different things, but like the level

00:27:30.460 that these women are triggered by this stuff and they're, I think of it now is like their

00:27:36.560 nervous systems are hijacked by this ideology even if they're like at home on their phone like

00:27:42.720 breastfeeding a newborn but their minds are like and part of them is in that global cause and in

00:27:48.880 climate was the big cause in 2018 in 2019 right and now it's no longer as fashionable um but i

00:27:55.880 think that's why my story i think is important because there's different causes but the same

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00:29:35.440 I really have an empathy for young people, particularly of your generation and the generation

00:29:40.800 that came after you, which I didn't at the start because of the way that we were treated and the

00:29:45.660 way that things happened in the comedy industry. I was very angry, but the more I step away from it,

00:29:50.700 the more empathy I have because I talk to young people

00:29:54.140 and then they say things like, I don't want to have kids.

00:29:57.040 And I go, OK, why not?

00:29:58.800 And they went, well, because of the climate crisis,

00:30:01.180 I don't want to bring children into this world.

00:30:03.720 And you go, this has gone so deep, so deep into your psyche

00:30:08.960 that it's actually affected you to the point

00:30:11.980 where you don't want to carry on your own lineage,

00:30:14.840 which to me is heartbreaking.

00:30:16.080 It's so heartbreaking.

00:30:17.140 And again, I think that generation that's younger than me,

00:30:20.820 the people in their 20s now,

00:30:22.020 they were the ones that were taught climate stuff in school.

00:30:24.440 It became curriculum because all the teachers and people were like,

00:30:27.180 we have to teach this to them to be responsible.

00:30:29.940 And for me, in 2006, I was a sophomore in high school,

00:30:33.220 and we watched Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth

00:30:34.980 during a high school assembly.

00:30:36.620 And that was my first exposure to it.

00:30:38.720 Was that widespread or was that just your school, do you think?

00:30:41.880 I think it was widespread.

00:30:42.960 Wow, okay.

00:30:43.760 And that was sort of the beginning of the climate movement

00:30:46.760 of my era where like, I feel like my parents are baby boomers

00:30:50.500 and they had like Silent Spring

00:30:51.600 and like they were like hippie environmentalists.

00:30:53.980 And then for us, it was the climate and Al Gore's that film.

00:30:57.120 And I will say, I remember watching that film

00:30:59.560 and I was overwhelmed afterwards

00:31:02.600 with so much existential dread.

00:31:04.720 I remember sitting in like a photography class,

00:31:07.220 hanging out with my friends after

00:31:08.300 and I was like thinking in my mind,

00:31:09.740 okay, I'm 16, I have to, I'm 26.

00:31:11.600 Like I have 10 years to live

00:31:13.040 based on whatever I took away from that film.

00:31:14.860 That was what I thought.

00:31:16.100 But I was wracked by anxiety, like, in my nervous system.

00:31:20.140 And then at the same time, my brain was kind of like,

00:31:22.060 well, we're going to not think about that anymore.

00:31:23.800 We're going to throw that out of my mind.

00:31:25.320 I'm not going to think about this every day.

00:31:26.740 But something changed.

00:31:28.000 Like you're saying, this hopelessness,

00:31:29.640 where then my new reality was there are certain rules I have about reality now.

00:31:33.560 We're ruining the planet.

00:31:34.500 We're burning the planet.

00:31:35.580 The planet is burning.

00:31:36.900 And it's not a matter of if.

00:31:38.780 It's a matter of when.

00:31:39.900 But I guess my future self will have to deal with that,

00:31:42.380 which now I know isn't even true.

00:31:43.680 But, like, that was one film.

00:31:45.600 So again, the younger generation, they're getting this from their teachers as a curriculum, and so they have it way more in their psyche than we do, elder millennials that we are.

00:31:58.800 I hate to use this term because it's kind of hyperbolic, but it feels appropriate. It's kind of brainwashing, isn't it?

00:32:05.300 Yeah, I think it's brainwashing, and I'll be even more hyperbolic. I say it's a crime against humanity. I really do.

00:32:10.940 I think that the teachers and the schools, again, they pushed this ideology.

00:32:15.860 And I think in their minds, they were saying, we're doing the responsible things.

00:32:18.800 These kids should know that the planet is burning and they should know in fifth grade.

00:32:22.880 Not that they can do anything about it, but they should learn so they can grow up and be an activist or whatever.

00:32:27.900 And I think, unfortunately, again, we now know that the tide's turning a bit.

00:32:34.180 There's been a bit of a vibe shift because reality is hitting with the energy prices and everything.

00:32:39.420 But think about the social costs back in the day of if you're in 2015 saying, actually, maybe we don't teach climate to fifth graders.

00:32:47.380 They'd say, well, you're a climate change denier and you would be ostracized or maybe even be pushed out of a position.

00:32:53.360 So it just was a snowball, compounding effect.

00:32:58.840 And it really hit every level of our education system.

00:33:03.000 And it's such a waste of human capital.

00:33:04.820 It frustrates me so much.

00:33:05.840 And Lucy, obviously, since you've evolved in your views, I'm sure that one of the things you've done is gone through some of the main things that you used to believe and done the research and looked into it.

00:33:17.580 And there are so many things that are now effectively accepted as the truth about this issue that when you actually dig down are not true.

00:33:26.380 I'd love for you to talk us through the key beliefs of the climate movement

00:33:32.160 and also talk about where they're not actually true.

00:33:36.260 Yeah.

00:33:36.900 So the climate movement, when I was in it,

00:33:39.060 the ideology was essentially we have 10 years to prevent a catastrophic climate change.

00:33:47.120 And basically the planet will become unlivable

00:33:48.820 unless we transition off of fossil fuels as fast as possible to things like solar and wind.

00:33:53.260 and um meat was vilified um the capitalism was also vilified because of this endless consumerism

00:34:00.860 and all these things and so the the picture was very bleak and the only way to change this was

00:34:06.040 again off of fossil fuels as fast as possible and tune renewable energy or else the planet

00:34:10.340 would be unlivable that was the basics so i sort of i sort of secretly started doing my

00:34:16.120 re-education all the way back in 2020 and i read michael schellenberger's book um apocalypse never

00:34:21.980 and he debunked a lot of stuff and then i read steve coonan's book unsettled and steve coonan

00:34:27.820 was a department of energy is pointy by president obama so i really liked that because he was not

00:34:32.600 like an other to me and um both of those books sort of broke my association with some of these

00:34:39.280 biggest narratives essentially being like this is not catastrophic uh steve coonan i think is the

00:34:45.320 best to quote because his book unsettled went into what is like basically saying hey this science is

00:34:50.220 unsettled right we're all being told that it's settled fact anyone who questions it is a climate

00:34:54.840 change denier and you're ostracized but he was like hey i'm telling you it's really not and one

00:34:59.880 of the things that my jaw was on the floor was that extreme weather hurricanes droughts flooding

00:35:05.860 have not gotten worse because of climate change and when i read that i was like you're kidding me

00:35:10.860 again because every time there's an extreme weather event the news will say it's because of

00:35:15.580 climate change. It's made worse because of climate change. But the IPCC, which is the

00:35:20.000 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is the UN body that will look up, will look at

00:35:25.300 all of the climate research when they do their big studies on all this stuff. And they are not

00:35:31.720 even able to find in their own work that there's a pattern of increase. And hurricanes, I think,

00:35:37.180 is a crazy one. There's no pattern. And to the uninitiated, right? You here in high school,

00:35:44.880 extreme weather's getting worse because of climate change.

00:35:46.420 Then there's Hurricane Katrina, right?

00:35:47.980 And then they're saying, well, look at these billion-dollar hurricanes

00:35:50.400 or billion-dollar damaged hurricanes are getting worse.

00:35:53.160 And so you never question that original assumption.

00:35:55.740 And then every time there's a storm, it just, your brain goes,

00:35:58.280 oh, another horrible storm.

00:35:59.700 An asteroid hit, that was climate change.

00:36:01.440 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:36:02.180 So one of the core claims, I think, that is the most ingrained

00:36:08.200 is the idea that 97% of climate scientists agree.

00:36:12.540 and then it's kind of

00:36:14.560 that's where it gets a little bit

00:36:16.640 hazy in people's minds because no one kind of knows

00:36:18.560 what it is that the claim is they agree on

00:36:20.600 right exactly what is the claim

00:36:22.280 so the claim oh my gosh

00:36:23.960 that was one study

00:36:26.080 by a man whose last name is Cook

00:36:28.260 and I want to be careful I probably

00:36:30.560 will not say it perfectly but essentially

00:36:32.380 the takeaway was that

00:36:34.120 he said in his research that

00:36:36.320 he looked at like 12,000 studies on climate

00:36:38.520 change and he said 97% of the scientists

00:36:40.600 said

00:36:42.440 that climate change is happening, but, um, and it's caused by humans and it's, but no, he just

00:36:47.880 said, I think in that one, it was just that it's happening, but then it got retold by people saying

00:36:53.020 that it's, it's happening. It's caused by humans and it's dangerous. So the original claim was

00:36:57.520 the temperature, the average temperature is changing. Basically. And he would count people

00:37:01.860 like in a lot of scientists, when they were like counted, when they heard that they were counted,

00:37:05.520 their papers were counted in the 97%. They were like, yeah, but my paper said like, it wasn't a

00:37:09.080 big deal right so like but the thing is it was like a game of telephone because this guy cook

00:37:13.720 he really wanted to find this so that like you know journalists and everyone can now have this

00:37:18.020 thing to go to it's like studies say 97 percent of scientists agree which is not true at all um

00:37:22.960 but president obama in 2013 when this study came out tweeted that and said 97 percent of scientists

00:37:27.660 agree that climate change is happening it's caused by humans and it's dangerous and that was like

00:37:33.300 a really big leap from just the fact that 97 percent said that it was happening and again

00:37:39.580 there's more people there are experts on that specific 97 study but essentially there is no

00:37:44.800 consensus on the human made aspects of the climate change right like we how much we're causing it

00:37:50.660 and there's no consensus on how dangerous it is to us there is a consensus i would say that like

00:37:56.180 the planet is warming but whether it could just be a natural warming cycle that we're in and i know

00:38:01.840 you just had on Ian Plymer.

00:38:04.620 Maybe I'm saying, is that his last name?

00:38:06.200 Plymer, I think.

00:38:07.120 Well, you just had on Ian Plymer,

00:38:08.440 and I know he is a scientist who went into all of that.

00:38:10.680 Well, he's geologist, but forget about what he said.

00:38:12.860 If you look at the graph of the temperature of this planet

00:38:17.780 over a long period of time,

00:38:20.180 sufficiently long period of time,

00:38:22.700 what we're living through now

00:38:24.300 is just a small and very insignificant change

00:38:29.700 that is not unprecedented in the planet's history, etc.

00:38:34.960 But you say there's no consensus.

00:38:36.700 So there's no consensus among scientists in your view

00:38:39.240 that we are contributing to climate change?

00:38:42.300 I would say, listen, I don't feel like I am necessarily the best expert

00:38:47.100 to be like, these scientists say that stuff.

00:38:48.660 I would say, for me, what I learned from doing all this research

00:38:54.080 is how many scientists, if you question it,

00:38:56.340 you are kicked out of polite society.

00:38:58.420 You are losing your career, tenured position.

00:39:03.380 And so there's a few really outspoken scientists,

00:39:06.860 like Michael Mann is a very good example,

00:39:08.480 who are touted by the media all the time.

00:39:10.900 And then anyone who questions it,

00:39:12.780 they have been so successfully tarred

00:39:15.780 that people in the media, like what I used to be,

00:39:18.780 they don't even go to those people 1.00

00:39:20.200 because they're in their minds like they're clacks. 1.00

00:39:22.420 So there's no consensus, I would say, 0.80

00:39:24.860 among scientists around the impact we're having

00:39:27.500 and the danger but the media like it's like the media has not caught up with that and so they

00:39:32.140 always are selling it like the mainstream media the big outlets you can think of they're always

00:39:36.560 selling it like it's an existential threat it's like they haven't caught up to the fact that

00:39:40.520 there's so many scientists who say there's not a consensus on this stuff there's going to be a lot

00:39:45.840 of people who are watching this show um who are thinking to themselves you know i'm young i'm in

00:39:51.160 my mid-20s late 20s whatever it may be particularly young women who are enmeshed in these types of

00:39:57.280 movements or social groups etc what would you say to them is the most effective way of actually

00:40:04.220 deprogramming and leaving yeah and i think that's the thing too is like where i feel the most

00:40:09.360 comfortable talking about everything is like what can we observe from the last 40 years the

00:40:13.860 observational data because the climate scientists they have their like fancy models and they're

00:40:17.820 always like going with well what if whatever what we can observe over the past 40 years is the fact

00:40:22.940 that deaths from natural disasters are down 99% in the past 100 years. So when I always say,

00:40:29.660 if I concede to you that climate change is happening, let's concede everything about the

00:40:33.420 science. Deaths from natural disasters are down 99%, so it's not dangerous. So even if it's

00:40:39.340 happening the way that everyone says it's happening, we're obviously very good at adapting

00:40:43.880 as a species because we've gotten wealthier, we've gotten more technologically advanced,

00:40:48.320 And so we are not dying the way that we used to from storms, floods, droughts, and all that.

00:40:53.780 So I think that's a really great place to start because it doesn't require you to get into the minutiae of all this other stuff.

00:41:01.500 And like this scientist said this, because I already feel like that's a losing conversation.

00:41:05.340 So the deaths from natural disasters is one I always start out with.

00:41:09.120 Another thing I think is really important is understanding how lopsided the coverage of this is in our media.

00:41:14.880 So they always are pushing the fear and the disaster and, you know, saying things like CO2 is a pollution when CO2 is also a plant food.

00:41:25.460 And so because we've increased CO2 in the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, we've seen global greening across the globe by 5, 15 percent, even 25 percent in regions of the globe.

00:41:35.740 That's good news.

00:41:36.780 And so I like to bring in the good news with the supposed bad news and say, hey, let's look at this logically.

00:41:44.140 Like, CO2, which is the thing that we're releasing into the atmosphere when we use oil, coal, and natural gas, the plants use it for photosynthesis.

00:41:51.080 We learned this in biology class, right?

00:41:53.620 So, like, before you learned about climate, you learned about this.

00:41:56.960 And so because we've doubled that rate of CO2 in the atmosphere, plants are better at performing CO2.

00:42:03.060 They're growing—I mean, sorry, they're better at performing photosynthesis.

00:42:05.560 So they're growing bigger.

00:42:06.500 They're growing faster.

00:42:07.240 I love the fact also that greenhouse growers will pump CO2 into their greenhouses up to 1,500 ppm, parts per million, because the plants love it, versus we're at 420 ppm right now, parts per million, and that's how you measure all this stuff.

00:42:24.800 And so that's like almost three times as much CO2 as going into greenhouses to grow things like our vegetables and our houseplants and all these things.

00:42:33.180 So if CO2 were really such a dangerous boogeyman, why are greenhouse growers putting it into these greenhouses?

00:42:42.120 And that's the thing I think is really important.

00:42:45.000 And maybe I think why my voice is important in this conversation versus someone who's like the climate scientist who's been studying this 40 years is I know the misinformation that's in the mind of the activists or just the bystander who they think that they're choking on carbon dioxide.

00:43:00.020 Right. Oh, do they? Yes. Yes.

00:43:02.240 People just think carbon dioxide is bad.

00:43:04.800 There's an association in their mind that it's a pollution.

00:43:07.720 And so just really attacking those really basic levels of misinformation, I think, is

00:43:13.320 where I play that part, because I don't think climate scientists necessarily would even

00:43:17.600 know that they have to acknowledge that.

00:43:20.080 Because the misinformation, again, is so wrong.

00:43:22.620 It's so blatant.

00:43:23.900 And like I said, I was in the climate movement for years.

00:43:25.780 I didn't even know what percent of the atmosphere was CO2.

00:43:29.040 And I was in the climate movement for four years.

00:43:30.960 and then I learned it was 0.04%.

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00:45:12.860 And a really key part of your journey, I think, is the fact that you had kids.

00:45:18.060 Yes, yes.

00:45:18.960 And how did that change the way you saw the world? Because when you talk to a lot of women, 0.98

00:45:23.760 particularly women who were hyper-liberal at one stage in their life they have kids or they plan

00:45:28.980 to have kids and suddenly their view of life is completely shifts yeah I think having kids is a

00:45:35.900 really uh defining moment where you really create boundaries emotionally all of a sudden because you

00:45:42.540 have this life in front of you and so you have to kind of I had to like bring in my energy back to

00:45:47.040 like the life in front of me and I I think you start to reflect on how you were raised by your

00:45:51.960 parents and the values that they gave you. And I started to realize I really wanted to be raised

00:45:56.360 with the values that my parents raised me with, a gratitude for being American, an appreciation of

00:46:02.400 capitalism, all these sort of basic American values. And I had strayed so far from that.

00:46:07.800 And I think having my first son in 2022, it made me kind of take stock of what are my values and

00:46:13.120 what am I passing on to my son? And I don't, do I want him to be raised to be like some crazy

00:46:17.700 leftist like no it's actually a really destructive mindset um and then also the guilt for consumption

00:46:23.540 in the modern world and i'm looking at my son at 20 and born in 2022 and going he didn't choose

00:46:28.840 to be born in 2022 he shouldn't feel guilty for having you know fast fashion one day or filling

00:46:34.900 up his car with gas or whatever it may be right we don't choose when we're born so the fact that

00:46:39.820 i was carrying around so much guilt for living a modern life um was something i had to let go of

00:46:44.940 because I didn't want to pass it on to my son.

00:46:46.900 Can I jump in very quickly here?

00:46:48.960 You mentioned that your parents raised you

00:46:50.780 with what sounds like very good, healthy values. 0.94

00:46:54.380 How does one go from that to becoming a crazy leftist?

00:46:59.560 What's the pipeline?

00:47:01.560 Because a lot of parents nowadays,

00:47:03.660 including people who watch us and listen to our show,

00:47:05.800 will be thinking like, I want to do right by my kids.

00:47:09.000 I know there's a crazy world out there

00:47:10.640 that's going to teach them a bunch of weird things.

00:47:13.260 I want to protect them.

00:47:14.180 But your parents did do that, right?

00:47:16.840 Yes, my parents did.

00:47:18.160 But again, I don't think that they realized the power of social media.

00:47:21.120 So I think I started to get spending a lot more time on social media through work and in my 20s.

00:47:28.300 And I think I just started getting exposed to ideas.

00:47:31.120 And I think I would say to my parents or like my dad, I'd be like, oh, the world is such an awful place.

00:47:35.660 Like there's so much inequality and suffering.

00:47:37.560 He'd be like, it's not that bad.

00:47:38.720 I don't know like what you're talking about.

00:47:39.960 I'd be like, oh, he's so out of touch.

00:47:41.480 Like he's so privileged.

00:47:42.540 And so I think he didn't really know how to...

00:47:45.380 He didn't really say,

00:47:47.540 Lucy, what are you worried about?

00:47:49.540 Like, I think it's, like, get specific.

00:47:51.040 What's so bad about the world?

00:47:52.540 What is it about America?

00:47:54.380 What is it about inequality in America?

00:47:56.220 And I think bringing an international context

00:47:58.220 of other countries and how other people live

00:48:00.260 would have really helped ground me,

00:48:02.220 because I started to just think that America was uniquely evil

00:48:05.060 and capitalism was uniquely evil.

00:48:06.860 I had no context, and I just kind of fell for it,

00:48:09.440 hook, line, and sinker, which is embarrassing.

00:48:11.840 And I think...

00:48:12.560 By the way, I'm not trying to embarrass you.

00:48:14.260 No, no, I know, but it's really important

00:48:15.000 because it's very common,

00:48:16.380 and I'm not embarrassed at all.

00:48:17.860 I think it's whatever, it's fine.

00:48:19.760 I think it's kind of the issue of our time

00:48:22.560 with this disconnect between the older generations

00:48:26.320 and the social media.

00:48:27.180 And again, it's only gotten worse

00:48:28.980 as the generations have gone on.

00:48:30.940 I think we're a weird generation

00:48:33.040 where we're the first people to be exposed

00:48:34.460 to all this stuff.

00:48:35.380 And I think, obviously,

00:48:36.360 the way I'm going to raise my kids

00:48:37.440 and their access to social media

00:48:40.160 is going to be so different

00:48:40.900 because I'm going to know what that technology is

00:48:43.820 versus my parents didn't know.

00:48:47.620 And I think, I don't know, I think I just,

00:48:51.300 I got myself really, I just got myself hooked up

00:48:53.500 into the group of this very leftist thinking.

00:48:55.880 And again, when you start to also get career accolades

00:49:00.220 and you start to get success from that

00:49:02.820 and it becomes your social circle,

00:49:04.640 even if you start to question it,

00:49:06.540 which I did when I was in it,

00:49:08.780 I didn't leave it because of all the other things

00:49:10.800 that were then part of my life um and again I will say I think being part of group think and you kind

00:49:17.040 of um give up your critical thinking to the group it's a comfortable way to live and even when I

00:49:22.300 would see in the climate movement some contradictions of how like these things were

00:49:26.360 working and I go how are we going to go exactly net zero like um even when I would see those

00:49:31.060 contradictions I would think oh well if I like go against the group I'm gonna have to do a lot of

00:49:37.020 work on myself because it's almost like you're having to stand up against the group and think

00:49:42.140 about all the incoming you're about to get because people are no longer going to be looking at you as

00:49:46.000 like a friendly you're now like an op and they're going to try to take you down all this stuff and

00:49:50.060 so i think that's also why it took me so many years between questioning this stuff and uh going

00:49:55.680 public in 2025 and i think it's really really commendable what you did because there'll be

00:50:01.460 people who'll be watching this who'll be quite judgmental and go you don't know what it's like

00:50:05.840 To be in a group, that deep-seated desire all human beings have for a tribe, and then suddenly become aware that actually what you're being told isn't true, and then having to stand up and leave it.

00:50:19.740 And I think a lot of people are going to experience that with a lot of the tribes that they're in.

00:50:25.120 People have joined the MAGA tribe, they're going to find they're uncomfortable with certain aspects of that, with the Dems, whatever it may be.

00:50:31.300 And to actually have that, how can I say, consistency of character.

00:50:35.840 is really quite, you know, kudos to you, to be honest.

00:50:39.640 I think more people need to reclaim their autonomy

00:50:43.460 and their critical thinking and their mind

00:50:45.240 because I think that with, again, the algorithms,

00:50:47.900 like, we've just given up so much of our thinking

00:50:50.600 and I think there's so many ways,

00:50:53.900 I was talking about this a little bit before,

00:50:55.200 but, like, how they hook you back in.

00:50:57.480 And I think, you know, even, like, one of the last ideas I had

00:51:02.800 that kind of kept me in was, like,

00:51:04.980 because it was such a nihilistic movement

00:51:06.720 being part of the climate change movement.

00:51:08.280 And so I thought, oh my gosh,

00:51:09.940 I don't want to think that the world's going to end

00:51:11.480 in 10 years, right?

00:51:12.540 But then I would think, well, maybe the people

00:51:13.840 who are spreading the doom and gloom are smarter than me.

00:51:16.200 Like, I'm optimistic.

00:51:17.700 I'm positive about the state of the world.

00:51:19.420 Well, I'm naive, right?

00:51:21.080 And so you just like, there's so many ways

00:51:22.860 your mind plays tricks on you to keep you in the group.

00:51:27.140 And again, years of just giving up my voice to the group,

00:51:31.680 even thinking like, well, I'm a white woman.

00:51:33.400 Like, who am I to say?

00:51:34.480 like which is so silly but like a lot of people live that way like the identity politics keeps

00:51:38.980 you in um yeah it's very pervasive and it's also as well on a more basic level losing friendships

00:51:45.900 that is always painful yeah losing friendships although I feel like everyone whose friendship

00:51:50.380 I lost obviously were not like they're my fake friends like they were like my colleagues and

00:51:54.880 like sort of my like vaguer like social circle and so it was I will say for anyone watching this

00:52:00.760 so maybe we need to leave a group.

00:52:02.540 It's really not actually as bad as you think

00:52:04.780 because the people who are your true friends

00:52:06.560 don't leave you,

00:52:07.640 and the people who leave you

00:52:09.680 were never really your friends anyway.

00:52:11.020 It was superficial connection.

00:52:12.540 And on the other side of leaving something like this

00:52:15.460 and reclaiming your power over your life

00:52:18.880 and your truth and autonomy,

00:52:20.540 it's so priceless.

00:52:21.520 It's really worth it.

00:52:22.660 Because I always see these types of groups,

00:52:25.080 and again, maybe it's my bias,

00:52:26.300 through the lens of addiction,

00:52:27.980 you get the nihilism,

00:52:29.140 you get addicted to the nihilism,

00:52:30.760 You get addicted to your own sense of self-importance.

00:52:35.260 You get addicted to the fact that you are right and other people are wrong.

00:52:39.120 And then the engagement you receive on social media.

00:52:41.780 It's a constant feedback loop.

00:52:43.440 It is.

00:52:43.960 Again, in the end, like the phones, like you can never turn it off, right?

00:52:46.480 It's just always there.

00:52:47.800 And I remember anytime I used to get a critique when I was still in this group think,

00:52:51.780 I would spiral.

00:52:54.740 Like if I had any kind of feedback that was like signaling to me that I was not part of the group,

00:52:59.300 I would have anxiety for days, because my sense of self was built on sand. Like, I truly was just

00:53:06.420 constantly pinging the group to be like, what are my opinions? Am I a good ally? Am I a good ally?

00:53:12.100 Am I doing everything right to show that I'm, like, part of this movement? And it was so exhausting.

00:53:17.160 And I say this anecdote sometimes that, like, by the end of it, and this is 2020, and I'm at home

00:53:22.040 during COVID, and I started to binge watch this reality show, Survivor. And I remember thinking

00:53:26.760 I wanted to post I liked Survivor on my Instagram,

00:53:29.300 but I was afraid that people would think

00:53:30.940 it was a privileged opinion,

00:53:32.700 because it takes place in Fiji, the global south,

00:53:36.340 and it's like American reality show,

00:53:38.280 and I was like, oh, my God, people are gonna think

00:53:39.840 I'm like a privileged woman for liking Survivor.

00:53:42.840 Which is like, that was the level of self-censorship,

00:53:45.820 and I guess this is tangential to the climate stuff,

00:53:48.080 but honestly, it can't be separated.

00:53:49.540 It was all an overwhelming thing.

00:53:51.860 I will say, too, one thing we didn't talk about

00:53:53.860 other than having my son was also living through COVID,

00:53:56.660 was a huge moment where I created separation from the group

00:53:59.800 because we were shut down, couldn't leave,

00:54:02.960 freedoms were on hold.

00:54:04.760 And during that whole year,

00:54:06.320 our carbon emissions went down by 5%.

00:54:08.260 And at that point, I'm like, net zero by 2050.

00:54:12.220 And then I'm like, wait a minute.

00:54:14.500 What does net zero want from us?

00:54:16.320 Because I don't want to live in a world

00:54:18.960 where we don't have freedom anymore.

00:54:20.700 And I think that was enough of a window of opening

00:54:22.640 for me to read Michael Schellenberger's book,

00:54:24.540 Apocalypse Never, in 2020.

00:54:26.660 when it came out.

00:54:27.940 And then that reading began,

00:54:29.520 and I read it secretly.

00:54:30.480 And that was enough for,

00:54:31.520 then I stopped posting.

00:54:32.940 And then I started reading books

00:54:34.460 and educating myself privately.

00:54:35.940 And I truly thought

00:54:36.940 I was never going to post again.

00:54:38.600 I was like,

00:54:39.060 I'm just going to keep my opinions to myself,

00:54:42.240 take it to my grave,

00:54:43.360 and just like help build the free press

00:54:44.840 for Barry and all this stuff.

00:54:47.820 But then I think this past year in 2025,

00:54:50.900 May of 2025,

00:54:51.940 I was kind of looking around

00:54:53.960 and I started to realize

00:54:54.940 that the climate narrative

00:54:55.880 wasn't like neutral, right?

00:54:57.560 Like to stay silent was actually irresponsible

00:55:00.600 because of the damage it's doing to our energy system

00:55:04.180 and the nihilism it's pushing to young people.

00:55:07.640 And so I think I kind of had to have like a come to Jesus moment

00:55:10.520 where I'm like, okay, there's like two roads.

00:55:13.020 What do I want my life to represent?

00:55:14.680 Because in the end of the day,

00:55:15.940 I don't want to be on my deathbed one day

00:55:19.040 and saying I never spoke up because I was afraid.

00:55:21.640 um because and then it became something bigger than myself like okay i'm going to speak out

00:55:27.740 because i'm doing this for young people i'm doing this for affordability like and i had just had to

00:55:33.680 like kind of transmute it to be able to then put myself out there because i'm like okay this is

00:55:38.880 like bigger than me um and i mean look it's led to conversations like this and so i'm so happy

00:55:43.720 that i did because i feel like people don't realize this this climate movement stuff is

00:55:47.940 so destructive. Yeah. Whether it's on our economy or just like the mindsets of young people. And so

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00:56:57.480 maximizing impact from AI. Well, one of the things you mentioned there, backtracking a little bit,

00:57:03.080 that I've been very curious about recently is you talked about how when you weren't clear what

00:57:09.220 your opinion was supposed to be or if your opinion was challenged in any way, it caused you to feel

00:57:13.340 really strong anxiety. And we have noticed that whenever we have engaged with people who have

00:57:19.040 more of that mindset, it's like you can never talk about ideas because there's always an

00:57:26.700 emotional reaction. Do you think this is what's happening? It's like if you have that mindset

00:57:31.520 and I say to you, well, have you heard about this or are you aware of that or I see a flaw in that

00:57:36.740 logic it's not like we're discussing the ideas i'm like threatening your entire existence is

00:57:42.360 that what's happening exactly yeah it's starting the identity and that's why they can't have the

00:57:46.100 conversation wow yeah so how do you can you win those people over i mean i think you have we have

00:57:52.480 to honestly because but can you well i mean i'm here yeah i don't know how i made it i think i

00:57:58.500 think can we take credit yeah yeah i was watching you guys in 2020 we radicalized you

00:58:03.100 The radicalization of Lucy Vickers.

00:58:06.320 No, I think, yes.

00:58:07.620 Okay, so yes, I think we can win them over.

00:58:10.920 I think we're moving out of this emotional heightened space

00:58:13.420 that we were in.

00:58:14.280 I honestly, I keep...

00:58:15.380 What?

00:58:16.080 I think we are.

00:58:16.880 What?

00:58:17.560 Yeah, I'm here.

00:58:18.020 Look around.

00:58:19.060 It's only getting worse.

00:58:20.000 Yeah.

00:58:20.520 No, I think it's becoming more visible.

00:58:22.280 I think it's not.

00:58:23.120 I don't think it's getting worse.

00:58:24.840 I mean, I don't know.

00:58:25.820 This is where I feel that it is now.

00:58:27.900 I mean, it's not like I'm not taking polling

00:58:29.820 or anything like that.

00:58:31.000 But I think that the fact of the matter is

00:58:32.560 like this heightened emotional state we've been in

00:58:34.480 because of social media

00:58:35.280 and because of like Trump derangement syndrome

00:58:36.720 for the last 10 years,

00:58:37.880 I think it's like something's got to give.

00:58:39.800 And I think that ultimately more and more people

00:58:42.560 are speaking out against like their own experience

00:58:45.200 in like what I call like the blob now

00:58:47.100 or the woke like ideology and the leftist ideology.

00:58:50.420 There's so many people who are decamping from it.

00:58:52.980 So many.

00:58:53.460 And it's probably as millennials are getting older,

00:58:55.760 but I know so many influencers

00:58:57.500 who are like at my level of following

00:58:59.120 who are similar stories,

00:59:00.740 but maybe, like, not climate activists, but just activists.

00:59:04.040 And so I think we just need more people to tell their story.

00:59:08.420 And I think it has to, I don't know, if something has to give,

00:59:13.300 it has to change eventually.

00:59:14.500 Because I think, oh, there's a lot of silent people,

00:59:16.540 maybe, who they've stopped posting, right?

00:59:18.000 Like, even that, like, that silent period is really big.

00:59:20.460 Because for me, that was five years.

00:59:22.000 I didn't post.

00:59:23.480 I was just sort of taking things in.

00:59:26.180 And hopefully, like, my story, as an example,

00:59:29.940 It helps people who are maybe going through that transition to orient towards something where they can like relate to bits of my story and then also hopefully not think I'm a right wing nut and like write me off, which does happen a little bit.

00:59:41.120 I was going to ask you about that, actually, because one of the things that we've, as you well know, I imagine since you watch our show is we've always tried to find, you know, the highest value for us is balance and truth.

00:59:53.140 Yeah. But nonetheless, the moment you question the progressive movement, you immediately become in a right wing or whatever, whatever in their minds.

01:00:03.260 When you were kind of in that space, what do you think were some of the most effective ways of reaching someone who has that point of view without being immediately put in a in a kind of right wing box or whatever it might be?

01:00:17.240 Is there something that that like we and others can do to make ourselves more palatable and to actually reach across that aisle or you're laughing, which makes me worried?

01:00:27.440 I mean, I think it's going to have to come from the people who are still in it to be ready for it.

01:00:32.520 Right. And again, my experience of having my son and living through COVID were two shifting experiences that I was open to it.

01:00:39.280 And so I think it has to come from the person, because, again, it's like if I had the answer to that, I would be like a millionaire because that's what everyone wants to know.

01:00:46.540 And I get messages a lot that are like,

01:00:49.080 I'm gonna help me.

01:00:50.120 Like, you're giving me hope for my daughter.

01:00:51.840 I can't reach her because she's so this way.

01:00:54.680 And so I think also just like, I think in person,

01:00:58.380 showing up as a normal, kind, good person

01:01:03.520 in your life and how you act in your life.

01:01:05.700 I think for me, that was interesting

01:01:07.460 because I would see people who were very conservative,

01:01:09.160 but they also had a lot of like, really lovely values.

01:01:12.540 And I would be like, wait a minute,

01:01:13.660 they're kind of like a better person than I am.

01:01:15.340 You know, and I'm like this, like, always, like, armchair, you know, activist over here.

01:01:21.860 Actually, I will say, you know, do you guys know who Ricky Schlott is?

01:01:24.380 Yes, we've had her on the show.

01:01:25.340 Oh, you have? I love her.

01:01:26.280 Actually, she actually plays a really big part in my story because when I left Now This, that left-wing place,

01:01:31.920 and then I had one year at a non-profit, Ricky was there.

01:01:35.920 And I sat next to her.

01:01:37.280 And she's a libertarian, sort of like small C conservative, and she wears a cross on her neck.

01:01:41.780 and I had never worked with a conservative who was my peer my whole career and she was awesome

01:01:48.900 and I'm like this girl's so smart she's so um confident in her perspective and she stands up

01:01:54.540 for what she believes in and she was modeling to me the type of person that I would want to be

01:01:59.100 and but she had conservative values but she was so kind about it and um she actually introduced

01:02:05.200 me to Barry Weiss's podcast honestly and she said you should listen to this you would like her and

01:02:09.500 she could pick up from talking to me that I was not as left-wing as I had once been. But in my

01:02:13.660 mind, Barry was like a fascist, which is crazy because I worked at this really left-wing place. 0.81

01:02:19.880 And so she was a name that would regularly get tossed onto Slack and then they would like drag

01:02:23.740 her. So it's just like, that's where I was coming from, which is pretty crazy. And so when I listened

01:02:28.300 to Barry's podcast back in 2021, whenever that came out, or I guess it was 2022, whenever it came

01:02:33.980 out, I listened to it and I'm like, wait a minute, she's not a fascist at all. She's awesome. And

01:02:37.960 then I was like, actually, this is really great conversation. This is really good content. And

01:02:41.340 that was a big awakening for me because I'm like, oh, I've been labeling this woman as like this 1.00

01:02:46.020 right wing nut. I'm listening to her podcast. It's normal. It's actually really good because 0.75

01:02:51.340 all the content I'd been consuming when I was really on the left was so boring. It was all the

01:02:56.320 same, you know, identity politics and boring stuff. And so that was a huge like shift. So again,

01:03:02.220 that one interaction was enough to like totally, but I was ready for it. Sure. And I think that's

01:03:07.940 a really important part of it because like when the student is ready, the teacher is magically

01:03:12.600 emerging. But also I was wondering if you, and you're a parent now, of course, I'm sure you've

01:03:16.960 thought about this as a parent, what can one do to help their children kind of just navigate this?

01:03:23.800 I'm not saying you have to brainwash them into your worldview, but how do you like the word

01:03:28.700 you use that I love inoculate? How do you inoculate your children against this craziness?

01:03:34.320 Yeah, I think, um, you have to do counter-programming, right?

01:03:41.520 You have to show if they come home with school, from school really upset about something and thinking America is the worst, you know, you have to say, listen, we have a complex history, but, you know, we also are responsible for X, Y, and Z, you know, and showing them the good parts of American history or also, like, showing them other countries that are so awful, like their leadership.

01:04:01.260 Like, I didn't know, like, how bad Stalin and Mao were.

01:04:04.600 I did not know.

01:04:05.600 I didn't know.

01:04:06.420 I really thought that, like, we were just the worst country,

01:04:09.580 which is really, it's so, it's so sad.

01:04:12.020 That's such a common thing.

01:04:14.200 You laugh, but, like, that's what every leftist thinks.

01:04:16.520 That's so crazy to me.

01:04:17.620 I always say, though, when people ask me the same question,

01:04:19.840 I'm like, I am so lucky because I have family living in poor countries. 1.00

01:04:24.120 Right.

01:04:24.600 So the moment, if my son ever said something,

01:04:26.520 like, oh, we live in the world, I'd be like, okay,

01:04:28.620 three months in Armenia.

01:04:30.920 Bye-bye. 1.00

01:04:31.940 You're staying with grandma.

01:04:32.900 No, I'm serious.

01:04:33.620 No, seriously.

01:04:34.500 You know?

01:04:34.900 It's this, like, Western privileged person

01:04:36.920 that we truly just don't know how good we have it.

01:04:39.780 And unfortunately, the education system, the culture,

01:04:42.440 the movies, the shows, the social media,

01:04:44.700 everything is pushing the same ideology.

01:04:46.360 So it's so pervasive.

01:04:47.940 And unless you just really have someone

01:04:49.940 who's intentionally saying, like, hey, like, hold on.

01:04:52.120 Like, let's look at this full circle.

01:04:54.400 And I think for me, if someone had said that to me

01:04:56.560 when I was kind of first getting into it,

01:04:58.440 my early 20s, and I guess I...

01:05:00.200 had conversations with my dad and he just sort of said the world's not that bad but he didn't

01:05:04.620 show me evidence right and not no fault of his own but i think that was a moment where like

01:05:08.980 if he had said hey look at how tens of millions of people died you know under this like despotic

01:05:14.080 leader whatever i think um that would have helped i think ground me and not had me get swept up into

01:05:22.080 it as much but it's also as well let's be honest your peers at that point in your life are more

01:05:27.280 important to you than your parents so true yeah so if you're surrounded if that's literally what

01:05:33.020 you imbibe with the opinions that you hear the conversations that you have and all your friends

01:05:39.120 are echoing this particular viewpoint it's quite natural that you're going to take it on exactly

01:05:44.080 yeah and I think one of the things is and one of the things that gives us hope is that we're now

01:05:49.640 more aware of social media and the effects that it's having on young people yes exactly I think

01:05:54.680 so too so hopefully we're going to get to a point where we realize that what we see on our phones

01:06:01.000 ain't always the truth well and with ai and stuff it's like only getting crazier with like being

01:06:07.300 able to tell like what the truth is too so i think you're gonna have to just like by using the

01:06:11.620 internet now you have to just be like is what i'm saying you have to fact check every single thing

01:06:15.140 that you see you totally especially if it gets an illicit emotional reaction because you know now

01:06:20.380 I have my own triggers that are more on the other side and I will if I get like really worked up by

01:06:25.300 like a tweet after be like wait let me just make sure this tweet's actually like accurate some of

01:06:29.480 the stuff going on in the UK I like follow I'm like oh my god like who's getting arrested for

01:06:32.980 a tweet and then sometimes it is still true but um yeah I think I think having that moment of like

01:06:39.060 taking a beat letting the emotion pass kind of clear-headed okay what actually is happening here

01:06:44.800 is so important absolutely because when you see a tweet you go all right that can it's only a

01:06:50.360 tweet and that can be a small part of the truth but it's not going to be the whole right exactly

01:06:54.720 so yeah but the last bit of this interview is just francis making points and lucy going yeah

01:06:59.160 exactly that was the last four questions he's making great points i don't deny that at all

01:07:06.800 uh lucy it's been great having you on uh we're gonna go to uh questions from our supporters in

01:07:12.340 a second before we do though what is the one thing that we're not talking about that we really should

01:07:16.760 be oh my god you're putting me on the spot i was just like listening to francis over here yeah

01:07:20.220 He was just smashing, smashing point after point.

01:07:22.980 I was like, yes, yes.

01:07:26.500 I think the thing that people really need to understand

01:07:29.740 that even took me a while to get through

01:07:33.220 is that, you know, the climate movement

01:07:37.020 actually is not a force for good.

01:07:39.640 It's not your friend.

01:07:41.240 And I think hearing that,

01:07:43.520 depending on where you're coming from,

01:07:45.180 sounds very extreme.

01:07:46.260 But when you actually look at its impacts on reality

01:07:49.520 with the energy costs going up,

01:07:51.640 our dependence on our adversaries for energy,

01:07:54.380 whether it's China, the renewable supply chain,

01:07:58.500 or even, like, Europe having to use Russia.

01:08:00.860 And then also the nihilism, the anxiety among young people,

01:08:04.540 basically a mental health crisis for young people.

01:08:06.980 All of these things...

01:08:08.340 Oh, and also, I will say, the filification of fossil fuels,

01:08:10.380 which I think are the best technology

01:08:11.600 that's ever happened in the last 150 years.

01:08:14.960 When you take all those things objectively,

01:08:16.940 this is not a neutral movement.

01:08:18.540 It's actually hurting society.

01:08:20.760 And the quicker people can kind of come to that conclusion and help push against these really destructive narratives, I think, the better.

01:08:26.740 Oh, you know, by the way, I was going to ask you one question that I forgot, and I want to ask you.

01:08:30.140 When you were in the kind of climate movement, did you ever get confronted with the idea of nuclear energy and the fact that it's actually incredibly carbon neutral?

01:08:41.420 Yeah.

01:08:41.660 Yes.

01:08:42.600 But, of course, like for whatever reason, that was also like a third rail and you weren't allowed to support nuclear energy.

01:08:47.260 Like, supporting nuclear energy in the climate movement

01:08:49.300 when I was a part of it was, like, edgy.

01:08:51.900 If you're like, well, obviously, I support nuclear.

01:08:53.480 Like, they basically, because the climate movement 0.67

01:08:55.140 that I was in was kind of like a degrowth society 0.99

01:08:57.080 that, like, hated the West. 1.00

01:08:57.940 So they were just like, just solar and wind,

01:08:59.540 which are the worst technologies.

01:09:01.120 And nuclear now has kind of come back.

01:09:03.160 And there's a lot of practical people, I will say,

01:09:04.940 who support nuclear.

01:09:05.720 But back in my very activist-y world,

01:09:08.360 nuclear was not seen as a solution.

01:09:10.540 And also, the climate activists would say stuff like,

01:09:13.740 well, we can't innovate our way out of this problem.

01:09:16.080 We can't innovate our way out of it.

01:09:17.360 I'm like, what?

01:09:18.080 Like, we innovate our way out of every other problem ever.

01:09:20.900 But for some reason with climate,

01:09:22.380 like this nihilism was pushed to such a degree

01:09:24.420 that they were like, no, they just want you to say

01:09:26.200 we can have nuclear so you can keep consuming

01:09:28.560 at the level that you want

01:09:29.540 and keep capitalism the level that you want.

01:09:31.500 Like, it became...

01:09:32.220 Yeah, that's what we want.

01:09:33.060 Yeah, I know. I was like, yeah, sounds great.

01:09:34.600 But once you realize that the movement is founded

01:09:36.960 by people who put, like, the value of life on Earth

01:09:40.180 and nature over humanity, it makes sense.

01:09:43.600 Like, they prioritize untouched nature

01:09:46.260 and a perfect untouched earth over human flourishing.

01:09:50.440 And that is, like, the flip you need to switch

01:09:53.160 and realize that the goal isn't untouched nature.

01:09:56.120 The goal is human flourishing.

01:09:57.720 And once that makes...

01:09:59.440 Once you make that movement in your mind,

01:10:02.680 you can still care about conservation.

01:10:04.060 You can still care about the animals and all these things

01:10:06.400 and cutting down on pollution,

01:10:07.620 but you need to prioritize humans,

01:10:09.840 which is a climate movement.

01:10:10.960 It's most ardent supporters, which is what I was part of.

01:10:13.400 don't prioritize human life over like they want like an untouched perfect planet from like before

01:10:19.600 we were born so all right head on over to triggerpod.co.uk where lucy's going to answer your

01:10:25.640 questions if climate doom reason is exaggerated what environmental issues do you think actually

01:10:33.340 deserve attention

01:10:34.340 We'll be right back.

TRIGGERnometry - May 13, 2026

Ex-Climate Activist Speaks Out - Lucy Biggers

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