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The Current Transcript for August 18, 2021

Host: Nora Young

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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Canada will 'exhaust every effort' to get people out of Kabul, says minister

Guests: Denis Thompson, Ali Mirzad, Marco Mendicino

SOUNDCLIP

It is not too late. The world is not ending. You will have a future. We won't go extinct. We have all the tools to solve this crisis right now. So let's turn this eco anxiety, grief, anger and depression into a collective climate action.

NORA YOUNG: That might be something you need to hear right now from just one of the many people trying to fight back against what is known as eco anxiety, what to do when it feels like the world is on fire in 30 minutes.

SOUNDCLIP

Cleaning, organising, literally trying to make your life make sense by moving things physically around you is exactly what I do. What I do is take a little stuff and dump it into boxes.

NY: Yes, that is former presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. Yes. She's talking about dumping former President Bill Clinton's things into boxes. And no, we don't have her on the programme today, but we will hear from Dax Shepard, who had that conversation with Hillary Clinton on his podcast, Armchair Expert. Dax Shepherd spoke with Matt Galloway about the pandemic addiction, masculinity and his career. But we begin this morning with the latest on Afghans who want out of their country. I'm Nora Young, in for Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

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SOUNDCLIP

Today, I was in my apartment around 12 o'clock, and then I was hearing screaming and crying of the woman outside the apartment. So when my mother went to the door and she saw some Talibans were going up through the stairs, I said, lock the door and just come back. And then after that, I told my wife, can you just go and tell them like, no, my husband is out. No one, no man is in the apartment. I cannot open the door for you. And then the Taliban say in Pashto language, OK, we will not come in. They were in the building for two hours. They took two people from their apartment, from the building where I live. They were working for the governments.

NY: That's what it's like to live in Kabul, Afghanistan, right now. According to a man we're calling Abdul, we've agreed not to use his real name to protect him and his family. He was speaking with the CBC's Susan Ormiston yesterday from the Afghan capital. He's since left his apartment, which is in an area known to house government staff and people who worked with foreign organisations.

SOUNDCLIP

I'm not safe my children and my wife is not safe here, especially my daughters, that they are very scared. I'm scared. You know, I couldn't sleep. Every time I feel like someone is coming behind the door and not answering. Can you get this guy? And then he did this this this before. And this you know, since 2001 or 2002, I've been working for different organisations and different different media. As a journalist, I have contacted maybe 50 to 60 crews, organisations, NGOs that I worked for. So everybody's promising me. But I hope these promise one of the promises on the on the real state so I can get out of this country with my family.

NY: Abdul has worked as a freelance journalist and translator with several international organisations, including Canadian. Now he's one of many Afghans in danger under Taliban rule and one of the many hoping for help getting out Canada's pledge to take in 20000 Afghan refugees. But veterans and Afghan Canadian resettlement groups are frustrated with the lack of transparency in the process. Now a volunteer humanitarian effort spearheaded by veterans and retired generals is working to help interpreters and others who worked alongside Canadians. Retired Major General Denis Thompson is a 39 year veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces and served as a NATO commander in Kandahar in 2008 2009. General Thompson. Good morning.

DENIS THOMPSON: Good morning.

NY: So what's the latest you're hearing about the situation for the Afghans that you're trying to get out of the country?

DENIS THOMPSON: Well, we have about 800 individuals, so that's not 800 interpreters, but it's there for them and their families spread across Kabul and various safe houses and enduring exactly the conditions that you just heard, that you just played on on the radio. We've told them to stay in place when we find out that there is an aircraft on the ground for work for which they are manifested and we have a mechanism to attempt to move them to the airport. The difficulty being, of course, is they'll have to navigate a series of Taliban checkpoints.

NY: Canada resume military flights yesterday. What will that mean for your efforts to get them out of the country?

DENIS THOMPSON: Well, that's good news, obviously. The connection still has to be made between the airport when the flight arrives and the individuals who are being asked to get to the airport. Right. That journey takes varying lengths. And it's the two Canadians that we have on the ground, the two Canadian experts who were on the ground that are doing that assessment for us and assisting and advising these families on how to make that treacherous drive.

NY: Elizabeth, how much communication have you had with the Canadian government on resettlement of these Afghans who are at high risk and in the country?

DENIS THOMPSON: Well, it's fair to say that we've had pretty good communication with our former colleagues in the Department of National Defence, not the greatest passage of information between ourselves and Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada. We provided a number of of lists of names, et cetera. But we don't get any feedback and we're not really sure who's actually on their vetted list, which is critical because we don't want to give out false hope to families that are trying to make their way here to Canada. Mm hmm.

NY: Of the 20000 Afghan refugees Canada has promised to bring in, many are already outside Afghanistan. What do you think of the government's priorities?

DENIS THOMPSON: Well, clearly, that's very important to do, family reunification, et cetera, for those those that are already outside of Afghanistan and thank goodness they are. Our focus is exclusively on the 800 in Kabul and the other 1200 who are trying to make their way into the capital. Then in one of these safe houses and then eventually get to the airport when when a flight is available. But that window is closing rather rapidly because as I think we all appreciate, the coalition will leave Afghanistan by the end of the month. And when that happens, then all bets are off with respect to what the Taliban will will inflict on those that supported the West.

NY: And how dangerous is it getting families from those safe houses to the airport?

DENIS THOMPSON: It's at the moment we are not aware of anyone that has all of our people are accounted for, first of all, let me say that and they're all in their safe houses to travel the streets because we're aware of a U.N. convoy that made it to the airport to get their expats out of the country. But that convoy was escorted by the Taliban. So clearly, there is some negotiation that has to occur at the lower level in order to to to cross all of these checkpoints. The concern is, of course, that at any one of these checkpoints, they could be pulled out and and denied or denied access to the airport and they could have their travel documents taken away. There's certainly stories of phones being taken, searched for any connection with the West and then, you know, some being some summarily executed. That's not uncommon, but that has yet to occur to the families that we are trying to guide inside of Kabul.

NY: After serving in Afghanistan, how are you feeling about what we're seeing there now?

DENIS THOMPSON: Well, obviously, I'm disappointed and and just as shocked as everybody else by the rapid collapse of the Afghan National Army, an Army that we helped to train, and that certainly gets under your skin. But what I like to say is to the to the soldiers who may be listening to your to your show that served in Afghanistan, that they they and they needn't be. I mean, they'll definitely be disappointed, but they needn't be hang their heads in shame because at the end of the day they performed what we asked them to do. And professional soldiers really exist just to buy time for the policy makers to come up with a workable plan at the political level. We hung on to a very tenaciously to a very difficult province when we were clearly under-resourced to do so. And every Canadian soldier that served there did so in a remarkable fashion and they should be proud of their service.

NY: Major General, thanks so much for your thoughts this morning.

DENIS THOMPSON: Thank you and thanks for keeping the issue alive.

NY: Retired Major General Dennis Thompson was NATO's commander of Task Force Kandahar. The Afghan community in Canada has watched the situation in their home country get worse by the day and they're paying close attention to government promises to resettle the most vulnerable. Ali Mirzad lives in Ottawa but he was born in Afghanistan. He is Hazara, an ethnic minority group in Afghanistan. He's also an advisor to the non-profit group Canadian Hazara Humanitarian Services. Good morning.

ALI MIRZAD: Good morning, Norah. Thanks for having us.

NY: Pleasure. So what are you hearing from family members about the situation on the ground there right now?

ALI MIRZAD: It's terrible, I mean, first of all, the communication is very sparse, I mean, we're only able to reach out of short window of time and very sporadically. I have only been able to speak to my uncle, my maternal uncle Monday, Monday morning. And, you know, we're today, Wednesday. I forgot even which day of the week we are because I've been up since Thursday night and everyone's scared. My uncle, you know, I have him, his children and I have my aunt, her children, her husband, like so many other people in our community, everyone has loved ones over there. And as of Monday, when I did reach my uncle, that was the first day, the second day after the Taliban took over the capital. And he confirmed that the Taliban were actually starting to go door to door to collect names. I guess, I'm not sure. But for us, the Hazaras who are a minority in Afghanistan is it's frightening. You know, the experience we've had with them in the past, in the 90s, where they've slaughtered thousands and thousands of Hazaras and committed genocidal crimes against us in the Mazar e Sharif and Bamiyan provinces. People are still living with the trauma of that experience. And now they're back and we're just people are stuck there.

NY: So what have you been doing to help secure travel arrangements for your family and other members of the Hazara community?

ALI MIRZAD: Well, that's a good question, Nora. I mean, we were we commend, we applaud, and we're immensely grateful for Canada stepping up and the announcement of the minister and the government made for relocating people. However, the programme itself is still not finalised. I mean, as of this morning, if you go on Immigration Canada's website, it still says that the detail for relocating those 20000 people is still unclear. And there was some hopes when the embassies were still open and the airport was still open. However, now that that's closed and the details of the 20000 people being relocated is also not clear, we're hopeless, to be more specific. And if I may just add this. The Hazara community here in Canada, we've made our case before the Canadian Senate on November 26, 2016, we made our case and for the House of Commons on December 6th, 2018. And then we subsequently presented our case to the parliament, to the House of Commons of Canada on June 22nd to the Human Rights Subcommittee. Interestingly, in June 22nd, just this past June, when we presented our case to the Human Rights Subcommittee of Parliament. There was another organisation. I mean, the meeting in that session was under the premise of the persecuted minorities of Afghanistan, and it presents an opportunity for the Hazaras as well as the Sikh and the Hindu community to present their case. The Jagmeet Singh Boolarra Foundation was as well. Now, the announcement that the minister made regarding this relocating a resettlement of the 20000 people only mentions the LGBTQ and the Hindu and Sikh community, as well as the [unintelligible] foundation. It has no mention of the Hazaras, and that for us is deeply disappointing and it concerns us. It's concerning because we feel that we have been left out of this entire resettlement project and our organisation, the one that I volunteer with, the Canadian Hazara Humanitarian Services, we have been flooded with cries of help from our community in Afghanistan, as well as Hazara Canadians here trying to help their relatives, asking questions about how they can help, how are they able to get out. I think we've all seen the desperation of people trying to get out, hanging on to that 52 plane. That's the state of mind that people are in Afghanistan. Everyone is desperately trying to get out. We again, I wanted to emphasise and underline again that we're immensely grateful for Canada stepping up and the world and the international community, but we just want to make sure that the Hazaras are not forgotten. The crimes committed against the Hazaras is well documented. We know what's waiting for us. So I only wanted to finish in closing by saying that that we should, as Canadians and the Canadian government, I urge them to follow the footsteps of the retired general Romeo Dallaire, by saving the Hazaras swiftly in order to avoid another Rwanda unfolding before our eyes.

NY: Ali, thanks so much for your insights this morning. Thank you. Ali Mirzad is an adviser to Canadian Hazara Humanitarian Services. He joined us from Ottawa, Canada. I'm joined next by Canada's minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Marco Mendicino. Hello.

MARCO MENDICINO: Yes, good morning, Norah.

NY: So what's the latest you can tell us about Canadian flights to bring people out of Afghanistan?

MARCO MENDICINO: Well, I'll come to that in just a moment, but I want to begin by acknowledging your last guest and that this is a difficult moment. The fear is palpable amongst Afghans and we're not going to forget about the Hazaras.

NY: Just to that point, are the Hazaras part of the resettlement plan? Can you just clarify?

MARCO MENDICINO: Yes, I'm going to come to that and we'll expand a little bit about that. But I also want to give you an update as you as you just asked. So look at the images at the Kabul International Airport were horrifying a couple of days ago. But I want to contrast those images with the images of our own Pearson International Airport in Toronto, where in the last two days we've received two more flights. And this brings to roughly 1000 the total number of Afghan refugees that we've been able to evacuate, which is nothing short of miraculous given the situation. And I want to give a shout out to the members of the forces in all of Canada who are there. They're working in exceedingly difficult and dangerous circumstances. We're working tirelessly with our coalition partners to resume flights. We're going to keep running them for as long as possible. But after that, as you heard the general say, the retired general say all bets are off, which is why the world needs to be ready for the humanitarian refugee crisis, which is unfolding. And this is where Canada is leading. We were the first country to launch a programme to welcome up to 20000 Afghan refugees who fled and are in third countries focussing on women, girls and targeted minorities, including Hazaras and Sikhs and others. And we're going to move heaven and earth to help them. We know that there is a need. There are reports from the U.N. that already thousands have fled Afghanistan. And this is going to be another national moment where, like with Operation Syrian Refugee, we're like with the Vietnamese boat people, we can leave and we will do so.

NY: But we just heard about the very immediate danger, as you point out, facing ethnic groups and those who who worked with Canadians who are still inside inside Afghanistan. Why now are resources going into bringing in Afghans who are already outside of Afghanistan?

MARCO MENDICINO: Well, first, I want to be clear with your listeners that Canada has been a safe haven for Afghan refugees for years. We set up a special immigration programme to help interpreters and other Afghan Afghans who supported the Canadian mission ten years ago. I would point out that the programme that we have put in place right now has seen a thousand evacuated. We want to evacuate more, but we also have to acknowledge that the situation on the ground is precarious at any given moment in time. We worry about the security of our Canadian officials and particularly the armed forces who are moving flights in and out. But we also know that there is an extraordinary demand for those who have already fled and in particular those targeted vulnerable populations, women and girls, members of the LGBTQ community, as well as religious minorities. We've worked closely with a number of organisations here in Canada and they're ready to take up the hard work of integrating those refugees. And I think this is where I think, again, Canada can lead. You know, yesterday I was on a call with our Five I's allies, partners and two to every single country. They pointed out how Canada has continued to show leadership in the space of humanitarian resettlement. And we are going to do so again now.

NY: But to clarify, the thousand who have arrived in the past few days, they're coming from inside Afghanistan.

MARCO MENDICINO: That's that's that's correct, and it's not just in the last two days, to be clear, we've been running this operation now for weeks and they are coming from Kabul thanks to the members of our armed forces, as well as some other arrangements with commercial flights. The point that I'm making is that we are exhausting every effort to evacuate as many people as we can, focussing on the locally engaged staff, the interpreters and Afghans who supported the Canadian mission. But I would just underline for your listeners that as the retired general pointed out, the window for that evacuation operation will close when the coalition partners withdraw from Afghanistan. And that's why it's important to be ready to lead on the humanitarian refugee crisis, which has already begun. And there are literally thousands who have already left Afghanistan and are trying to find themselves into third countries. They are displaced, they are vulnerable. They need a home. This is where Canada can lead. And by standing up this third country resettlement operation, we will be able to do so with the support of vets as well as civil society who is stepping up?

NY: Why didn't Canada mobilise more and sooner to get these people at risk out, though?

MARCO MENDICINO: Well, again, as I would point out, again, we've been we've been a safe haven for Afghan refugees for years, and you heard the retired general say that the coalition partners, I think we're all taken aback at how quickly the situation unravelled in Afghanistan and certainly the fall of Kabul, which is where the coalition partners remain at the last part of Afghanistan, where there's any coalition presence is really the last remaining geographic location where we can stand up an evacuation operation that is dangerous work, as you saw from just a couple of days ago. At times, the situation even within the command, Karzai International Airport, has been utterly chaos.

NY: I just want to I don't mean to interrupt you there, but I do want to get one last question in because we're almost out of time. The retired general said there are 2000 people his group has identified who need immediate help fleeing the country. How confident are you that you can get them all out before the end of the month?

MARCO MENDICINO: Well, I'm confident that we are working with veterans organisations, including retired generals, to verify the names on those lists. He said that there was good communication with the detainees, communicating with my department. We are working tirelessly with our coalition partners to resume flights, will keep running them for as long as we can, will get as many out as we possibly can, as safely as we can. And then we'll lead on our third country resettlement humanitarian pathway because we know there is an extraordinary demand there. There's a humanitarian refugee crisis that's unfolding and Canadians will step up to help.

NY: Thank you very much for your insights on this.

MARCO MENDICINO: Thank you, Nora.

NY: Marco Mendicino is minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. The CBC News is next.

SOUNDCLIP

And then overwhelming amounts of just like pictures of the world on fire and everything burning doesn't really actually seem to help. People want to implement change. But giving them an example of what we have to fight for and what that would look like, that helps.

SOUNDCLIP

NY: What works and what doesn't. When it comes to motivating the masses to combat climate change. In six minutes, we define the term eco anxiety and talk to two people who are doing something about it. I'm Nora Young and you're listening to The Current.

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Eco-anxiety: Activists want to shift the conversation from doom and gloom to hope

Guests: Emma Lawrance, Abbie Richards

NY: Hello, I'm Nora Young and you're listening to The Current.

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NY: Still to come, Dax Shepard first made his career out of being funny. Then he started being honest. He was both when you talked to Matt Galloway about his podcast, Armchair Expert. We'll revisit their conversation in 30 minutes. But first, the world is warming up and it's making us all anxious.

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NY: It's been a year like no other against the backdrop of a global pandemic. Canada has seen some of its most extreme weather ever. Last month, the small village of Lytton in British Columbia set a national heat record at nearly 50 degrees Celsius. Then it was burned to the ground by a wildfire. Then Greece was burning, then Turkey, then Spain and now France, all fighting devastating fires in Europe. India and China also dealt with catastrophic flooding. And just last week, the U.N. released a report calling a code red on climate change, saying our window to avoid catastrophe is getting uncomfortably small. Feeling anxious yet? Well, you're not alone.

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VOICE 1: I'm very concerned. I'm afraid.

VOICE 2: It's never been this dry in my time, farming in Manitoba.

VOICE 3: 90 percent of the village was destroyed.

VOICE 4: Also thinking long term, how is exposure for many days at a time to a heavy smoke is going to affect her in the future?

VOICE 5: Just installed solar panels on my house. I took a loan to do that. I don't have enough money to to do it myself. So it's very much a stretch.

VOICE 4: But there's definitely that tendency to despair and it's like a really scary, frightening time.

NY: That existential dread has a name, echo anxiety. Emma Lawrance is a neuroscientist and the Mental Health Innovation's fellow at the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London, Emma. Hello.

EMMA LAWRANCE: Hi, it's lovely to join you. Thanks for having me.

NY: Great to have you. So let's start by defining for our listeners what exactly eco anxiety is. How would you describe it?

EMMA LAWRANCE: Absolutely. So it's a term that you will hopefully your listeners are also hearing popping up more and more because it is so applicable to what people are experiencing at the moment, as we just heard in those clips. But it is sort of catch all term. And we do really need to unpack, you know, what does it mean when we talk about this term eco anxiety? Because it does capture a whole range of thoughts and feelings, including sort of everything from anger, despair, fear, anxiety, grief, loss. And so the the American Psychological Association has talked about eco anxiety as the chronic fear of environmental doom. And for many people, it can be something that crops up in strong emotions when they read the news or when they they witness the climate changing in their own homelands, in their own lives, and that green spaces, or they think about what is to come in the future. But for some people, it can also be associated with impacts on their life, like sleepless nights, you know, ongoing rumination or worries that are interfering with their work or their lives in an ongoing way because the distress about what they're witnessing or aware of is so great.

NY: Yeah, so it seems like there's sort of direct and indirect harm. I mean, what kind of emotional responses or disorders can people experience as a direct result of climate change or extreme weather events?

EMMA LAWRANCE: So when we talk about eco anxiety, we're really talking about that sort of indirect experience, usually where people are worried of feeling these strong emotions and really understandably in response to what's happening, but also, understandably, people who are directly affected. So if your home has been burnt down by a wildfire or been been flooded or you've smelt that smoke invading your home or you felt the extreme heat, there's a whole range of mental health impacts. So all of those experiences can be very stressful. They can be traumatic and they can lead to things like diagnoses of PTSD, higher rates of suicide, substance abuse, ongoing stress and depression and anxiety. And in particular, we see with heat, for example, that that's been linked to higher suicide rates, more hospitalisations for mental disorders and worse population, sort of mental health and wellbeing and sort of mood and vitality. But also extreme weather events can have long lasting traumatic legacies for communities. And all of these things are very understandable. But we haven't really taken them into account. When we think about climate change and both the cost of inaction and the benefits of action to date.

NY: And then the indirect harms are more levels of anxiety over concerns about climate change.

EMMA LAWRANCE: Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, this is a spectrum that's not really just direct or indirect because of course, you can experience something directly and be aware of the other ongoing things around the world and be worried about that as well. Even if you're not directly experiencing it or, you know, you might not have had your house burned down, but then your community might still be affected and you might be still affected from sort of flow on impacts or an ongoing drought or forced migration that makes you move away because you're a hairdresser in a community that has lost their farm is because of a drought. So there's a lot of flow on effects with these kind of issues. And so there's not just direct or indirect, but when we're thinking about people who are not yet directly affected by climate change, you know, particularly, for example, where I am in the UK, there are some direct impacts of flooding and and raise temperatures, but not as extreme as other parts of the world. And yet many people, especially young people, are aware of what's to come. You know, we're seeing reports like the IPCC headlines, Code Red for humanity is understandable and natural that that would lead to all of the emotions that we saw in the people speaking at the start of your cliff and feelings of despair, feelings of overwhelming anger at an action anxiety. You know, these are all very natural and understandable responses when people are empathetic about others, others experiences and nature in general, not just their own experiences.

NY: And what does all about stress and uncertainty due to the brain?

EMMA LAWRANCE: Yes, I think, you know, this is a quite different but also similar to other stresses we might experience different in that it's a sort of an existential threat. It is happening over longer timescales than some of the other ups and downs we might have in our lives. And we're having to grapple with it individually and collectively. And we really need to be doing that work and providing people space to process these feelings and having ongoing support. But it's also similar in that, like any sort of anxiety or stress, it can affect how our brain, our wellbeing, our bodies in ways, as I sort of said before, and leading to sort of sleepless nights or, you know, a whole range of other symptoms similar to anxiety, physical sensations of maybe an upset stomach or nervousness, restlessness, all all of the kind of things we would expect with other sorts of stress as well.

NY: I mean, when we think of health and climate change, we often think about the physical harms, things like, you know, poor air quality, for example. But how much attention is actually being paid to the issue of climate anxiety and how important is it to tackle both the physical and the psychological harms of climate change?

EMMA LAWRANCE: Is absolutely vital. So, you know, with climate change, it's being recognised more and more as a health emergency. But that does largely focus today on the physical health aspects. But every one of us is going to have to grapple with a changing climate, a changing world. And, you know, we need to start thinking about how do we support people to process these understandable but difficult emotions and to see that as much as we have, you know, are losing things and have things to grieve and be angry about, there is still hope and there is still a lot that we can do if we help people to translate those emotions into action, which can support their own mental health and wellbeing as well. But in terms of the costs at the moment, there's the huge hidden costs. When we think about an extreme weather event, we think about the damage to homes or lives lost, but we don't often think about the psychological toll, whereas when people have tried to calculate it, they're coming up with numbers about 40 to one. For every one person injured or physically affected by an extreme weather event or disaster is about 40 people who will be affected psychologically and have this long lasting mental health impacts for some of these people and communities, very understandably. And we're just not taking that into account.

NY: So what do you hope to see from policymakers at the upcoming UN climate change conference, COP 26 in Glasgow this November?

EMMA LAWRANCE: Well, I think where all eyes are on Glasgow at the moment for action in general, we need climate action. Obviously, I don't have to to tell people how vital that is. But it's also vital for, you know, not only the health of our planet, but human health and our mental health. And what we need is to make sure that in terms of that part of the agenda, that we're recognising that there's a two way relationship between climate change and human health and mental health. So not only can climate change impact mental health in ways that we haven't accounted for and need to cost and factor into those policy decisions, but we also can see that the way we think and feel about climate change affects how we act. And we need to make sure that we're accounting for that, as well as supporting people at all levels to shift in decision makers to shift to a place of action. And the really important thing is that there win wins here when we see that there are common causes to some of the mental health burdens on our societies and climate change. So things like air pollution and poor biodiversity, lack of access to green space, when we reverse some of those by not burning fossil fuels and having less air pollution, greening our cities, improving biodiversity, improving energy efficiency of housing, et cetera, et cetera, this has big, measurable implications for physical health and mental health. It can reduce inequalities because there's lots of equality's inequalities at the moment in terms of exposure to things like air pollution and lack of access to green space. And we know that those things lead to worse mental health outcomes, even higher levels of depression and anxiety and things like that. So there's a real win win opportunity here that taking action on climate can help our mental health and wellbeing as a community as well. And so I'd urge policymakers to both consider the hidden costs of inact. On climate for the mental health of society into the future, but also the the wonderful benefits of action.

NY: Emma, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

EMMA LAWRANCE: No worries, thank you so much for having me.

NY: Emma Lawrance is a neuroscientist and mental health innovation's fellow at the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London. My next guest is part of a collective of scientists and activists who are trying to address the doom and gloom by highlighting the things that can still be done to combat climate change.

SOUNDCLIP

I'm seeing a lot of climate doom and it has to stop. So I'm going to give you guys some tough love. But then we'll end on a positive note. I understand the doom, but accepting that it's too late or there's nothing we can do is exactly what fossil fuel companies want. Like if it's too late, then why bother even trying? And the thing is, it isn't too late. That's not how the climate works. Climate change isn't a Zero-Sum game or a switch that you turn on or off like as long as there are still people around. We still have something to fight for.

NY: That's Abbie Richards. She's part of the group Eco Talk. It educates about climate change, debunks misinformation and shares sustainability tips on social media. Hello.

ABBIE RICHARDS: Morning, thanks so much for having me. A pleasure.

NY: So what is eco talk? Can you tell me a bit more about it?

ABBIE RICHARDS: Eco talk as a collective of environmental educators and activists who use Tic-Tac as a platform to inform and motivate change. So at the moment we have 17 creators and they range in age and expertise and background. Our youngest just graduated high school and our oldest is a mother of two kids and we have like a bunch of different scientists. We have a sustainability scientist and a marine biologist, a meteorologist. But we also focus a lot on sustainable living and intersectionality. So we really have a diverse background, a diverse range of creators, and we consider that a strength.

NY: And for people who might not be familiar with tech talk and how it works, how does eco talk fit into that picture? And what is it about tick talk that makes it a particularly good medium for this?

ABBIE RICHARDS: Well, tech talk, you communicate these short videos. It's a really great place to just plant a seed. You're not going to completely give somebody a book's worth of information, but you can introduce them to a new topic. And that makes it really, really strong for communicating these climate science ideas.

NY: You had a chance to hear Emma Lawrance, who we just heard from, explain the impact of climate change on how we feel. And you've been seeing and reacting to this eco anxiety firsthand, not only on tech talk, but also other social media. What have you been seeing online that concerns you?

ABBIE RICHARDS: I see so much doom and ego anxiety in general, and I think people don't necessarily have a full understanding of climate change, they just have these very strong emotions like emotional responses. So we're getting really, really scary comments from our followers about feelings of suicide, feelings of grief and anxiety and being completely overwhelmed and feeling hopeless. Wow.

NY: You've dubbed yourself a climate communicator. What does that mean?

ABBIE RICHARDS: That means that as climate change continues to impact us, increasingly, we need people who understand why certain changes are occurring and can help people understand those changes themselves. So really kind of taking them by the hand and explaining what's going on.

NY: When you set out to debunk misinformation about climate change, what are some of the tools that you use to to unpack and share that information?

ABBIE RICHARDS: I think first I look at the common narratives that you see, so it really depends on the type of misinformation that you're fighting. When is something like denial that's been going on for ages and there's there's pretty clear tools and narratives to use to fight it. But when it's a newer phenomenon with like Dumas and this can be giving up, I've been fighting it by introducing elements of positivity and other creators that I work with have been doing the same because people seem completely unaware of the fact that there are positives that can come out of addressing climate change.

NY: Yeah, I know you've also spoken about some of the privilege that comes with that sort of climate doom and gloom that we see online. What do you mean by that?

ABBIE RICHARDS: It's often very frequently white people, especially from already very rich countries, who are the ones who embrace these narratives of helplessness. And there is no point and what can we do? And they are the ones who have also benefited the most. You know, I'm speaking to you from the US. You guys are in Canada and we both come from countries that have produced some of the highest amounts of historic greenhouse gas emissions. So really, for us to be the ones who are also like, oh, there's there's no hope in trying to combat this is incredibly privileged. That's an incredibly privileged stance to take, really. It's our responsibility to step up and and try and fight this.

NY: What types of reactions do you get from your followers over the videos we post?

ABBIE RICHARDS: You get it's a mixed, I would say, a lot of appreciation. I get a lot of thank you messages. It's kind of an outpouring of emotion. People just don't know how to talk about these feelings yet. Like, that's still a skill that we're learning. So having somebody address them in the first place is a relief for them. And I think sometimes they need to have their privilege checked. I've had people appreciate that. I've had people who don't live in developed countries who really appreciate that. We point that out. And yet largely they they think us because they tell us that they really needed to hear that.

NY: Do you I mean, Tik-Tok videos can often be very entertaining, right? Do you focus on making them entertaining or what is the tenor of the messages?

ABBIE RICHARDS: That's an art. It's a it's a tightrope that you walk between entertainment and education and you each person. And that's part of why we have 17 different people in our group and they all have different styles. So everybody uses their own style to try and blend entertainment education. So sometimes that's a meme. Sometimes what you heard me do earlier was just like a walk and talk in the woods. It really just depends.

NY: What would you like to see the mainstream media and indeed other social media platforms change about the way they communicate issues related to the climate crisis?

ABBIE RICHARDS: I think focussing on the emotions of the climate crisis is a really good start and acknowledging that there are a lot of those emotions and respecting them, you know, like there's a certain degree to which people don't need to be constantly reminded and shown pictures of the world on fire. And instead what they need is like outlines of what what change could look like and how that could be good for them, because overwhelming amounts of just like pictures of the world on fire and everything burning doesn't really actually seem to help people to want to implement change. But giving them. A example of what we have to fight for and what that would look like and why that's really positive, that helps.

NY: And why is that so important to create a more positive social media sphere around the climate conversation?

ABBIE RICHARDS: I think otherwise it just ends in this debilitating sense of hopelessness, if it's constantly just the doom narratives of we only have X number of years left or like this creatures or this species is going extinct, whatever doom narrative which is valid and fair and does deserve coverage. But people need to understand that there are also changes that we can implement and focussing on those and helping them understand what role they have to play in helping us to realise those changes.

NY: And is there a particular message that you've given that really resonates with people that you could share with us now for showing our own sense of climate despair?

ABBIE RICHARDS: And I think the message is that there are these like co benefits. And I think I mean, I'm always just talking about them as well. Like addressing climate change really does have benefits for everybody. And it can result in. I mean, that should result in increases like equality and it should result in all these positive changes on a massive scale. So focussing on how it's not entirely hopeless and there are ways that this will benefit us, that taking these steps, like no matter how hard it is and obviously change is always scary. But the more you know about that change, the less scary it feels and understanding that those steps are going to be helpful in the end, results of that change is going to feel better for everybody.

NY: Abbie, thanks so much for talking to us.

ABBIE RICHARDS: Thank you so much for having me.

NY: Abbie Richards is currently completing her Masters of Science, focussing on the intersection of climate change and misinformation. Earlier this year, Canadian artist Tamara Lindeman, who records as The Weather Station, released an album that gave a voice to her eco anxiety. It's called ignorance. It's sad, but also full of hope. This is the song Atlantic.

SOUNDCLIP

[Song]

NY: That is The Weather Station with Atlantic. Coming up after your regional update,

SOUNDCLIP

What's interesting about my career is it's actually middling on all level. The only thing impressive about it is there's so many different midlane. So it's just the fact that I've done OK and and a few different arenas that starts to seem impressive.

NY: Well, you can decide for yourself if you think Doc Shepherd's career can be described as middling in 90 seconds, comedian, actor, host of one of the world's most popular podcasts. I'm Nora Young and you're listening to The Current.

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Actor Dax Shepard on vulnerability, and finding success through failure

Guests: Dax Shepard, Hillary Clinton

NY: You may have known him for his roles in films like "Idiocracy", "Baby Mama" and "Hit and Run". And in the very funny TV series "Parenthood". These days, though, Dax Shepard is probably best known as the Armchair Expert. His podcast, "Armchair Expert", features candid conversations with the likes of 50 Cent, Hillary Clinton and everyone in between. He and his co-host and friend Monica Padman have cultivated a devoted following of 'arm chaires.' Each episode averages a million or so downloads, and proves that perhaps his armchair musing might be just what we're craving in these vulnerable times. Instagram followers would know that Dax Shepard is also a car enthusiast, and you could see him in the new online series "Top Gear America". Matt Galloway spoke with him earlier this year.

MATT GALLOWAY: Dax, good morning!

DAX SHEPARD: Matt, what an introduction! I started feeling like I was awesome while you were reading that. [laughing]

MATT GALLOWAY: And you should! You should! These are strange times. How is life in the pandemic treating you?

DAX SHEPARD: You know, it's always dicey to say this, and I'll start with some obvious caveats, which is I recognize that this is a total beat down for so many people. It's so brutal, unemployment, the isolation, all the stuff. But I would feel dishonest if I didn't say I'm... I'm lucky. I... you know, we have a house where we're not on top of each other. And I'm actually able to kind of recognize what a rare opportunity this is for me to be with my six and seven-year-old, you know, non-stop, for better or worse. You know, I like that 60 per cent of the time, and 40 per cent of the time, I think I'm going to kill myself or just disappear. But, in general, I'm quite certain I'm going to look back on this and go like, oh, my lord, what a gift to be with those little girls! So I'm trying to focus on that. And then it's hell on a marriage. I'll just say that. We've been kind of open about that. You know, the ups and downs, we... we were great at seeing each other for three hours a day. In 24 hours a day, we had to adjust.

MATT GALLOWAY: This is a messy time for a lot of people. And the tagline of the podcast is that it celebrates the messiness of being human. What's interesting to you about the messiness of being human?

DAX SHEPARD: Well, you know, I've been in AA for 17 years. And what I came to realize was, oh, I learn so much from people when they're sharing one of their failures. I learn almost nothing from somebody by their victory. You know, if someone like is a perfect dad, I really don't know what to do with that. But if a dad in a meeting talks about losing his temper, and then being ashamed of that, and then figuring out a way to apologize for that, [both chuckle] that stuff all is very helpful to me. I think if I had a singular enemy number one, it would be shame. It's something I've felt a great deal of my life. And I think it's cancerous. And I think the antidote to shame is recognizing that we're all sharing in these missteps and in these failures. And I think there's just great comfort in knowing, yeah, it's hard. It is hard to walk through [laughing] this life and not break stuff along the way.

MATT GALLOWAY: Did you realize at the very beginning that that would be the ammunition to to create a podcast like this, that there would be a listenership and audience out there that would be interested in leaning in for those kind of conversations?

DAX SHEPARD: I did not think that. This was just I love doing this. I'm in a position where I know enough people, I could probably do it for a little bit, even if it wasn't getting good ratings. And then everything else has been a shock to me.

MATT GALLOWAY: I want to play a little bit of one of the guests, who I think would be people might be surprised to hear in this context in terms of her forgetting that she maybe is talking. She's done a million interviews. She, by her very nature in terms of politics, has to be pretty guarded. This is a bit of your conversation with Hillary Rodham Clinton.

HILLARY CLINTON: So I've been cleaning! It's my favourite COVID activity. I've been cleaning.

DAX SHEPARD: Is it at all related, and I don't want to project on behalf of my wife, but I notice when she starts really organizing, I know, OK, this is a little bit of her depression. This is how she kind of satiates her [Hillary laughs brightly] depression. I have things I do. And that's the one that, to me, that's a little bit of a red flag.

HILLARY CLINTON: [laughing some more] Speaking for myself and every woman friend I have, [laughing all around] cleaning, organizing and literally trying to make your life make sense by moving things physically around.

DAX SHEPARD: Yeah.

HILLARY CLINTON: Is exactly what I do. What I do is take Bill's stuff and dump it into boxes. [more laughter all around] and say, OK, now you've got to sort all this out.

DAX SHEPARD: I don't think I could say I have a prized possession, but if I had to say one that I have, it would be that I've journaled obsessively for the last 16 years.

HILLARY CLINTON: Now, that I think is precious stuff, those should be preserved.

DAX SHEPARD: Yeah. And I think also, even though it's not a person, having one outlet of total honesty in your life, for me, is quite helpful.

HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah.

DAX SHEPARD: When I've gotten into trouble in my life is when I'm not even being honest with that journal.

HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah, but I mean, I think you deserve a lot of credit for, you know, being transparent, being honest.

DAX SHEPARD: Thank you!

HILLARY CLINTON: You deserve a lot of credit. It's not easy.

DAX SHEPARD: OK, so I want to get something that you will not like out of the way right away. And I think we share this in common. You hate compliments. Is that a fair assessment?

HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah, I don't know what to do with them?

DAX SHEPARD: [both laughing] Me too!

HILLARY CLINTON: It makes me kind of cringe. I've had to practice, though. I really recommend it to you. Just practice saying, oh, thank you.

DAX SHEPARD: OK, so I just want to get them out of the way, OK?

HILLARY CLINTON: OK, great.

DAX SHEPARD: First and foremost, you have the most arresting blue eyes. Unbelievably beautiful. You have the most beautiful eyes.

MONICA PADMAN Sparkling.

DAX SHEPARD: Monica, would you agree with that assessment?

MONICA PADMAN Yes.

HILLARY CLINTON: Oh, thank you! [everyone laughs]

MONICA PADMAN I bet you weren't expecting a physical compliment first. That's what he.. [Hillary laughs] Yeah.

MATT GALLOWAY: What was it like for you talking to her?

DAX SHEPARD: I got to tell you, that was... that was such a highlight for me. Because I have truly, truly liked her and admired her since I was in high school. And I was heartbroken for her. I've come to be so grateful to her as an example to my daughters. And to talk to her is one thing, but to start laughing with her and to connect with her, that was outside of maybe what my expectations were. Or I wouldn't have assumed we could have that exchange. And I really left that going like... I told my wife, I'm like, if she called right now and said, fly to New York right now for dinner, I would go. Like, I just... I just loved seeing that side of her. I loved that she's, you know, she's compulsively cleaning her house. And then she went on to say, you know, Bill collects all these DVDs [both laughing] he'll never watch, which is exactly what I do. And it was just really fun. I also had this real deep sense of like, oh, she knows how to deal with someone like me. Like, she has mastered dealing with a guy who's gotten away with murder and is, you know, a little bit charismatic. [laughing]

MATT GALLOWAY: But you but you were able to open her up in a way that I think would be really difficult for most people in talking to her, given, you know, the positions that she's held and the amount of, you know, attention and abuse that she's faced. What does it... I mean, you've kind of hinted at this, and she hinted at it as well, in terms of you being vulnerable, that allows you to be able to... to draw that side out of people?

DAX SHEPARD: Well, I think it is largely the better angels we have, which is I think in general, if a human comes at you with honesty and vulnerability, you feel a real moral obligation to meet them there. And that's not to say I'm doing it in a manipulative way. It's just the way I communicate through having, as I said, gone to meetings for so long. It's just kind of the the methodology of it. So, yeah, I think... I think in general, unless you're talking to a hardcore [laughing] sociopath narcissist, there is a very human desire to... to respond in kind, and to meet with good faith, someone's vulnerability.

MATT GALLOWAY: Vulnerability is hard, though, because we'll often flee from it like we'll run away from being really open with other people and being really honest with other people. How do you get over that?

DAX SHEPARD: I... it was a slow, slow process that I was forced to learn because I needed to get sober. And they said, you have to do it this way, or you won't be sober. And I have a kind of addiction that I was pretty certain I'd be dead from, so it was really like do this thing you would normally not want to do to save your life. And so what I slowly got to experience just through trial and error is every time I admitted something humiliating about myself, the wave of judgement I was predicting in my head that would be coming was never the outcome. It was always looks of recognition, people feeling comforted that they're not alone in that. And... and just slowly, I've come to really, truly believe all these things I'm terrified that are embarrassing, are in fact very bonding for people.

MATT GALLOWAY: As somebody who's in the public eye, is humility hard? I mean, is it hard to keep ego in check?

DAX SHEPARD: Yeah, the area that was particularly gruesome for me this year was when I relapsed on opiates after a series of operations. And that's where the ego got involved because I so cherished this role as somebody who's been sober for a long time, and... and people might look up to in that capacity. I get contacted frequently by people who are like month one or month three, or they're celebrating a year. And I gotta say, that was probably the cornerstone of my self-esteem outside of my role as a father and husband. So I very much bought into the idea that I would lose that if I were to admit that I had slipped. And that seemed unimaginable. I was having a hard time imagining what my identity was without that? And then, a really close friend just said, 'you know, if the thing you like about that is that you're helping people, it's a lot more helpful that you slipped than that you've just stayed the course perfectly for 16 years. You know, that's.. that's a little unrelatable. That's, you know, a really low percentage outcome for this. So, you know, if what you want to be is helpful, this is actually your opportunity. And that was [clears throat] really persuasive. You know, I had... I had done it privately to my friends and family and the people I'm in the program with. But yeah, to have to do it out loud, I also had a fear of like, you know, some people are just going to be like, just shut up, we don't need an update on [laughing], you know... There's still, you know, the kid from Detroit who's just, you know, always preparing for the terrible comment someone on the playground is going to make to me. But whatever, I did it. And once again, none of the things I thought were going to come came. People were very supportive and loving, and understanding.

MATT GALLOWAY: Can I... I want to play a little bit of the opening of that, this is from the episode of the podcast called Day 7.

[Music: Upbeat]

MONICA PADMAN Hi, friend.

DAX SHEPARD: [both laughing] Hi, best friend. I have a tremendous amount of fear about doing this.

MONICA PADMAN I understand.

DAX SHEPARD: One of them is people will maybe bombard me with things I did wrong or judgements of what I should or shouldn't have done. And maybe some people will feel a sense of betrayal because we preach honesty. And I was being dishonest. I have a fear financially that like companies who would want me to represent them --

MONICA PADMAN Of course!

DAX SHEPARD: Would now not. And then the cornerstone of my self-esteem other than the children is that we have this podcast and that a lot of people have been inspired to try sobriety based on how open we are about it. And I had a huge fear that those people would feel maybe misled or I don't know?

MATT GALLOWAY: Describe your emotions as you're sitting there and you turn the microphones on.

DAX SHEPARD: At that point, I feel pretty safe. You know, Monica's not just the co-host of the show, but she's my best friend, my wife's best friend, and she was someone who I most gaslit or gaslighted during my relapse. And so that's the person who seemed to be most aware that something was amiss. And I was lying to most often. And so I owed her a ton of apologies. But I felt semi-safe because we were in our little cocoon that we're always in, where it got scary is once you publish it, you know? Then it was like, oh, I had control over whether or not we even addressed this and we have control over what that will sound like. And then it's like, what are we going to name it? OK, this is weird. I don't want to name it "Relapse". Seems like we're promoting [chuckling] relapse, you know, all these little things. And then you just hits, you know, you put it on the server. And then that's over. Your... whatever control I have is... is now gone. And now, headlines are going to pop up, and I don't know what they'll be. I don't know if they'll be critical or what.

MATT GALLOWAY: What was the response like?

DAX SHEPARD: It was really supportive. It made me feel very loved and not judged. And I was pretty shocked by that. That the kids on the playground never came over and called me a fraud.

MATT GALLOWAY: Are you comfortable in that role that you have ended up owning in some ways where, as you said, you have... however, many years, 16 years, 17 years, whatever it is, and that people see you, and they see you as someone, well, if he can do it, and if he can have a relapse and get back out, then I can do that. Are you comfortable in that space, or were you always comfortable in that space?

DAX SHEPARD: I was not comfortable with the failure of it. And one of my great still hurdles in... in sobriety is I have a very hard time. I can be honest, but I have a really hard time asking for help. The moments where I should be calling someone or texting someone, I immediately think by doing that, I'll be acknowledging that I've failed at doing this program correctly, because if I was doing it correctly, I wouldn't be in this situation. So like my ego and lack of humility has... has many times stood in the way of me asking for help.

MATT GALLOWAY: How are you doing now?

DAX SHEPARD: [chuckling] I'm doing awesome now. I don't want to sound cocky, [both laughing], but I, yeah, like it's been four months since then, and I have already gotten to practice asking for help. And again, it's not as brutal and painful as I predicted it would be. And it's gone well. And I have actually had probably more joy in the last four months than I did in the year of sobriety leading up to the relapse.

MATT GALLOWAY: That's amazing!

DAX SHEPARD: Yeah. So today, I'm awesome, as we would say. [laughing]

MATT GALLOWAY: Would you ever imagine, you can never predict the future, but like a kid growing up in Detroit, would you have ever imagined that this would be the place that you would be in now in being who you are and talking this way and doing the things that you're doing in this manner?

DAX SHEPARD: Not at all. I was climbing such a masculinity mountain. [chuckling] You know, my my dad was not around a lot, so I sought approval from the other males I was surrounded by. I mean, I mostly thought if I could get in the Hells Angels, that would be the goal, where everyone feared me, no one could ever try to hurt me again, and I'd have the ultimate stamp of fearless masculinity. I think that's where I thought I wanted to go. And then through loving comedy and getting... and then surrounding myself with much different people once I moved to L.A. to pursue comedy, and seeing a different point of view, and getting approval in ways that were healthier and yeah, I couldn't have imagined it. I never did imagine it.

MATT GALLOWAY: Can I ask you about the masculinity piece? I mean, you talk about this as well a lot on the podcast.

DAX SHEPARD: Oh, yeah!

MATT GALLOWAY: I mean, how have you changed what you understand masculinity to be?

DAX SHEPARD: Well, I'll tell you, I used to be obsessed with guys who could do backflips on motorcycles, MMA fighters, Mike Tyson, blah, blah, blah. And there was a moment where I heard this guy, Jason Ellis, on Howard Stern, and this guy had been an X Games skateboarder, completely fearless. And he talked openly for an hour about having been sexually abused by his father and how complicated that was. And how he still loves his father. And and I at that moment... And then I got to meet him, he... I ended up casting him in a movie I made.

DAX SHEPARD: And then we became friends, and I got to tell him that's the bravest I've ever seen a man being in my whole life. I mean, forget doing a double backflip on a motorcycle. All the things that that could potentially threaten in this generic structure of masculinity. And yet, I could recognize, like, that is the ballsiest thing I've ever seen or witnessed. And... and I aspire to be that guy, you know?

MATT GALLOWAY: That's really powerful.

DAX SHEPARD: Yeah, I was... It was you couldn't not see the bravery behind it. I still like dudes doing backflips, but... [chuckling]

MATT GALLOWAY: That's you, though, too, right? I mean, you're at that place where you have that vulnerability and that openness.

DAX SHEPARD: I'm trying to be. Yeah, I could be better. [laughing]

MATT GALLOWAY: You probably, when you were growing up, you probably wish that you were driving Cars in "Top Gear America". I would imagine that that's something that you'd want to do?

DAX SHEPARD: Now, that's for sure! [Matt chuckles] Yeah, something that I was like, I have got to find a way to be a professional racecar driver. I just have been obsessed with cars since I was a kid, obsessed with motorcycles. And I've spent every penny of discretionary income I've ever made on them. And I've raced. And yeah, to get this job [laughing], and to... and it's a job that somehow marries improv comedy and motor sports, many days I drove home from set on that show and just thought, oh, here we go. Now it all makes sense. All these interests magically somehow came together in this one show.

MATT GALLOWAY: What do you like about driving fast? I don't know what you've driven this show that is like ludicrously fast, and it feels like you are hanging on by your fingernails. But what do you love about that?

DAX SHEPARD: You know, I think initially, I like them. They're loud, they're fast. It's visceral. That's fun. But once I started doing it, what I really loved is the control. I love control. I crave it so much. It's part of why I'm an addict. I like that you can take these four pills, and you know exactly how you're going to feel in 35 minutes. That is so comforting to me. So a car I feel so in control of, and it's it's predictable. Every time you turn the steering wheel to the right, it's going to move to the right, barring some mechanical issue. And then I got really into going to the track on the motorcycle. And that's when I also started realizing, oh, what I really love is that it requires one hundred percent of my focus. And in that period of incredible focus, I can't spend any time wondering what Dax wants, needs, [chuckling] is entitled to, has been shorted on. The reprieve from my brain is what's so wonderful about it.

MATT GALLOWAY: I mean, you have to be all-in when you're doing this podcast. You're a very good listener. And in part, that's why you're able to open people up is because it seems like you're just dialled in.

DAX SHEPARD: Thank you!

MATT GALLOWAY: We're in this time now where people are... it doesn't seem... the cliche is people aren't listening to each other. People are yelling at each other, talking over each other.

DAX SHEPARD: Yeah.

MATT GALLOWAY: Do you worry about that? Do you think that there's an opportunity for people to listen to each other more?

DAX SHEPARD: Oh, yeah. I mean, look, I don't ever aim to be a zealot on the podcast, or... Or, you know, be preaching too much. But I will say my... My main obsession or concern is that no one is... Is making any good faith attempt to understand what the other side is saying emotionally, mostly. It really hit me this election, what everyone's platform is, is how they're going to address what that party fears. So on the right, they fear immigration. They fear their guns are going to be taken away. They fear terrorism. They fear, you know. On the left, they fear global warming. They fear homelessness. They fear it... It's.. It's not as if both are driven by this utopian desire. It's more both sides are really scared. And minimally, that's sad for both sides. You know that we all have some pretty strong fears about the future. And I believe in science. I believe in facts. But with that said, I do think people sometimes miss the emotional undercurrent, which is, sure, you can explain that we're net-neutral immigration. That's not addressing the fear. The fear is I live in a town. We used to have a thriving economy, and we're completely dead now. OK, so that, you know, I can latch on to that and I can I can try to understand that. And there doesn't seem a lot of will to to try to put yourself in the other person's perspective. So I get a little, yeah, I get sometimes discouraged by that notion that people just don't have an appetite for anything uncomfortable. And I think we'll suffer for that.

MATT GALLOWAY: Who do you want to knock on the door of the garage and come up to the attic for a chat? Who's... who's on the list still? You, presumably, can get just about anyone now?

DAX SHEPARD: [chuckling] Well, you'd be shocked. So, yes, we're getting people that blow my mind. Like the fact that Bill Gates' team called us, I took me months to get over that. But I think Letterman, Bill Murray, Stern, those are kind of the comedy gods that I, you know, would like to chat with.

MATT GALLOWAY: What is it? Just finally, what is it about Howard Stern? You mentioned him before, and I know that you look up to him.

DAX SHEPARD: Well, two things. I think, one, his courage is pretty undeniable because he had himself a really, really comfortable fan base that was unparalleled, you know? And he must have been tempted to stay in a zone where he threw boloney at girls butts. And yet, he, at great risk, decided to evolve in front of all of us and never pretend he wasn't, and that he wasn't in therapy, and that he wasn't in love with his wife, and he didn't have these revelations. And I just think that takes courage for someone to, you know, put their... their livelihood at risk to be truthful to who they are. And so I applaud that. And then, you know, what you know in a Howard Stern interview is that you're going to hear something from this person that you've never heard before. And I just think he's a Jedi when it comes to interviewing people. He's incredible.

MATT GALLOWAY: Is that not... not the career, but the arc that you want in terms of having those sorts of conversations for as long as he's had them?

DAX SHEPARD: Yeah, you know, the thing I think about often with Stern is that he's Howard Stern. So when people sit down with Howard Stern, they actually want his approval very badly. I know because I've sat in the seat, and I would have given away the Russian nuke codes if I thought it would make him like me. And... and sometimes, I wonder I don't know if I'd enjoy that. I kind of like to earn it. I love trying to win people over. I'm an approval junkie. So to have Pete Carroll, Pete Carroll, the coach of the Seahawks, he comes up to my attic. And I can see on his face, he's like, I'm in someone's... above someone's garage. [both laughing] Who is this guy? I can tell he's already writing the email to somebody to say, how the hell did you send me there? And then at about about 25 minutes in, I just see this guy's enjoying this! So I find that very rewarding.

MATT GALLOWAY: You've had an amazing career so far. I mean, it's fascinating that you keep evolving, and you keep reiterating and becoming something else. That must be... it must be really exciting knowing that... that you're a guy who drives forward.

DAX SHEPARD: Well, thank you a lot. Because what's interesting about my career is it's actually middling on all levels. The only thing impressive about it is there's... there's so many different midling achievements, [both chuckling] which in themselves are somewhat impressive. Like, if you can sell screenplays in Hollywood, that's pretty good. Now, whether they get made and they become blockbusters, you know, that's still a low percentage. So it's just the fact that I've done OK in a few different arenas, [chuckling] that starts to seem impressive. But I'll just say this. The one thing I really do think is relevant is, you know, my movie "Chips", what a giant spend two and a half years every day of my life on did not work financially. And I was back to the drawing board of who am I, what's my identity, what's my career? And through that failure came this podcast. And this podcast is far and away the greatest thing I've ever been a part of. It's the most successful thing I've ever been a part of. And it literally was born in what I thought was my greatest failure, and probably the end of the road for me in show business. So if I have anything to encourage people on, it's simply like, don't underestimate your failures, man. You just don't know where it's going to end up with the long view.

MATT GALLOWAY: It's a real pleasure to talk to you, as a listener, as somebody who has heard your voice in my earphones for a long, long time, it's a real pleasure to have the chance to talk. Thank you very much.

DAX SHEPARD: Thank you, Matt.

NY: Matt Galloway spoke with Dax Shepard in February. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for q. The Queen of Rockabilly, Wanda Jackson will join guest-host Ali Hassan to talk about the release of Encore, her 32nd and final album -- and look back on her groundbreaking career. I'm Nora Young. Thanks for listening to The Current.

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Wednesday August 18, 2021 Full Transcript

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