Mom, can you pick me up? Climate Bill Headaches with Audrey Steward & Ambika Rayyador

6:04PM Jul 26, 2022

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We are deep into July. And while some of us want a hot girls summer, the fact is, we're all going to be having a hot boy girl person all of humanity summer now and always, because our climate is changing quickly. And guess what? Like it or not, we got to do something about it. I'm in love with the

Hey, I'm Audrey, and I'm Ambika, and we're guest hosting lovestruck daily today. And we're experimenting a little bit with something different than you're used to. Today, we're talking all about our planet, which we love dearly, and what we can all do together to make a change. So basically, me I'm a stand up comedian, based in Los Angeles, I'm originally from the Midwest, all of my material I use is I kind of try to, you know, inspire my audience and try to relate to my audience and kind of inform them, but also like, tell them about myself and I have really bad ADHD. And I'll say, Oh, good. This will be great.

Yeah, that's me to set comedian with ADHD who just loves this world. And I'm, I'm super stoked to be talking about, you know, our climate and everything like that today. So no, you're so cool. I'm so excited to be like, talking about all these current news with you a little bit about me. I am in Ambika, and I am a first generation Indian American and digital creative activist, and advocate, I'm really passionate about disabled rights, intersectional, feminism, and nature conservation, because these are all topics that are super important to me. So throughout all the work that I do, I try to weave it in and out of each of these topics. And I'm really excited to talk to you guys today, as we deep dive all these topics about things that we love and care about, I get really uncomfortable and heavy topics. That's why I think as a comedian, we like make fun of it, and we make jokes about it. But we should be uncomfortable. You know what I mean? We should feel because if we were comfortable, then like, like you said, we'll get into this later, if we were comfortable, you know, we would just be like, Okay, I'm just gonna sit back wherever I'm at, but I'm so uncomfortable by it. So I'm like, there's definitely like, there's growth that comes in this discomfort, I feel like on an individual level, but then also on a larger level. But yeah, kind of to build on that. Let's talk about that hope versus headache. We're gonna go through some news articles right now. And current events and topics that are happening all around the world, and also here in our hometowns in the US, and we're gonna see through a hope or a headache, if they're a headache. How can we turn that into a hope? Andrew, what was the hope or headache article you had for this week? Okay, well, I was absolutely blown away and flabbergasted by one of the articles that I came across with my morning coffee morning cup of coffee, aka morning, eight cups of coffee. I'm blown away by NASA's new images. So they really, those are all awesome. I was. I mean, they were so pretty. I literally wanted to go to the nearest FedEx and print out a poster of it. Because I'm like, This is so gorgeous. I think it was the NASA James Webb Space Telescope. I'm a big fan. And you know, what else I really loved about it is just like a news can be so dark and all this stuff. And I'm like, yikes. But then you just see that you're like, there's so much more in this like universe and you're just yeah, you're it's just there are some things that are just so gorgeous and so pretty. And every time I look at space or get to see something that's beyond our comprehension, I'm like, God, there's so much beauty in this world. You know, I definitely agree. I think of space. Like I get the same feeling when I think about spaces. I do. Like when I go to national parks. I'm just like, I'm part of something way bigger than just me. Yeah, it was great. Also, did you notice Okay, so I've been seeing like roller rink, just like carpets and how that was very close to the students led telescope. I thought that was pretty interesting whoever design that could be any royalties. So if we're deciding between if this is a hope or a headache, I definitely think that I brought yeah, hope. Which is Thank you. Thank you for that.

So in Vika I have that hope but what did you bring? Do you have a hope slash heading?

Yeah, this is a nice I've just read recently, it was like two days ago, I think it was UK temperatures broke 104 degrees. Like that's never happened before. It must have some relation to like what's going on climate wise because in the UK, all around Europe, actually, it's just record breaking heat right now. And they're trying to figure out like, what do we do to change this? And it feels like we're too late um, to some degree because it's like it's already here. We're already melting

literally I in that I saw that. The like an aeroplane can even take off because the runway melting my

gosh, it's nuts. It's a little bit more than like tolerating a hot summer. So yeah,

yeah, it's a little bit more than just like Take a dip in the pool. Yeah.

How do I like turn that headache into a home? It's like we're to think about more than just ourselves.

And you know what it's true. It's like, you know, what we're saying is super sad. So it's like, how do you turn that into something hopeful, but I think the way that I would personally be able to spin that is, like you said, people don't really act sometimes unless it affects them or unless it gets really, really bad. And that is sad, as we should never let it get to the point where, like, we can't control it. But I think right now when we we have the media, we have our voices, we have podcasts, we have our platforms. Now we are actually seeing it. And I think the positive spin is like, we have no choice but to get up. Yeah. And do something.

Exactly. It's always been like, for like, as long as I can remember, it's always been like, oh, that's someone else's problem. Or like, oh, that's for the bigger, like, adults to decide. And it's like, all right, they didn't do it. So yeah, yeah, exactly. And now we're the adults, they were like, Y'all didn't even give us a blueprint to work from. Ah, so here we are building the blueprint ourselves, and hoping that like, at least, whatever baby steps we make, like we can make sure that these kids like are not growing up at a future where they're melting themselves as far

as who we need to give and do something. The question is like, what can we do you know what I mean? Yeah,

that's what we're here to talk about. And just kind of talk through basically like live brainstorm ideas and how to do that through advocacy activism, and just like, boots on the ground kind of work. So let's take some of that hopeful energy forward, as we deep dive into our topic of the day, the failure of the climate bill, oh, man, oh, God, we are gonna first go over all the facts about what the climate bill was, what exactly happened with it, and then talk a little bit about why it didn't go through,

you know, I'm passionate about making a difference and things like that, but I'm so blessed to be talking to you and be here because I feel like I'm still and I'm sure you feel the same. I'm still learning about, you know, what, why it's how it got to this point to like, and, or why it might continue, even though we all as people and citizens are trying to do something, but like, I'm just learning more about the climate bill and things like that, like behind the scenes of

it. Yeah, let's talk about what happened to Senate.

Sit tight, everybody, because we'll be right back after this short break.

So big news, but also sad news again, but hopefully, we can spin this one as well. But essentially, Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia, we hear his name a lot in the news, never for a good reason. He refused to support the Democrats proposals for funding any of the climate or energy programmes. This is interesting, because he is a Democrat, like he serves on the Democratic seat. Yeah. So for the past 18 months, dem party leaders were trying to get his support on this, and they were compromising. And he was like, strike this out, and maybe I'll sign it, strike that out. And maybe I'll sign it, but it didn't do any good, because he still was gonna get his way. The Senate was split evenly down party lines. I think it was no one surprised who was on either side. All the Republicans in the Senate were voting against climate legislation. So mansion's vote was super important. It was like a swing vote of the Senate Senate kind of situation. And some background on him is that his family has been in local coal businesses for generations. So he's got it's like old coal money, if that makes sense. So he's not going to support anything that's anti coal, because this is like what he grew up with. He's also taken money from oil and gas industries, more than any other senators that we have a record of, which is kind of interesting. It's like that side I emoji minutes is like, I'm sorry. Are you on that side? I

emoji it's an angry face emoji. It's all the negative emojis I've got on my phone.

Yeah, yeah. I'm like, I want so badly to believe that he's like, not a Disney villain or something like that. But it's just like, bro, do the right thing for once clean. Yeah, yes, yes. But yeah, um, and so all that's happening. He's voting no. And then, in the larger scheme of it, the US is actually the largest emitter of planet warming greenhouse gases. In the whole world. It's like, kind of disappointing that we're number one, but in the worst way.

I mean, that is it. Is it sad, that's sad. It sucks.

So when we don't pass legislation like this, we're losing all of our diplomatic leverage when it comes to working with other countries like China. Because like, if you don't practice, like what you're breaching then no one's gonna listen to you, especially when it comes to like economic things, or tax filings and things like that, like, how can we do? How can we work with them? If we're not even practising those principles with our own businesses on US oil?

Yeah, but are they trust us or anything like that? Yeah. And so

all that goes back to like, the reason why a diplomatic leverage is important to us is because in the 2015, Paris Accord, every country was supposed to set its own climate target for five years 2015 With seven years ago, so Trump pulled us out of that. But Biden did rejoin, which is great news, but also like we had to catch up for last time. We didn't have we didn't have enough time to catch up. So we're supposed to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by half of that by 20. 30 and can't meet any of these targets without climate legislation. And, of course, like the larger context here is that without this legislation, we're not catching up. We're not even like close to any of our pledges. But the whole world is still melting at the same time. Like we just talked about that heat wave. It's happening across Europe. We've got melting ice caps, we've got animals dying off, we've got even here, we've got I had, I'm a hiker. So I talked about like, looking into nature conservation. I'm outdoors, like most of the time, if I'm not inside working, I'm out in the parks. Yeah. All throughout like may in June when it's supposed to be like the beginning of summer and the little hot, right? I'm up in the civic Northwest. I was hiking, and it was snowing. Like I was cotton snow storms. And I'm just like it's doing what's going on. Yeah, it's not just he it's like, weird weather all across the board.

Yeah. And you know, what's so wild about that is Austin, Texas. That giant snow blizzard that happened in Austin, Texas. Yes. With that power grid situation? Oh, yeah. So my brother lives there too. And I FaceTimed him and his girlfriend, and they were like huddled over candles. And then they were like, we have to take the truck out to get food. And I was like, what is the Oregon

Trail? Like? It's bad? Because like, we have the technology, and we have people who have common sense, but they're not the ones in charge anyways. Yeah. But yeah, so climate change should definitely be on everyone's, like, first radar, like that should be the number one priority. And so all that's going on. And then we also had a, like, adding to the bad news, the Supreme Court decision West Virginia versus the EPA. And it greatly reduced the federal government's ability to stop power plant emissions or even like reduce those. I hope it's not becoming a theme with like West Virginia and a senator from West Virginia. But I mean, like CIDA emoji again, I'm just starting to see a pattern.

Love that you use emojis to express?

I know. I feel weird. Like, what I describe the emoji like

No, but I kind of love that. I know that sounds weird. I love that you're you. You still, you know, like millennials, we're obviously we're adults. But you know, we have we still have like fun light. And I don't think it's bad. Any of the young things we do. I think we can combine the two like, I'm not saying we're fighting for climate change, a blast and a half, like major flood, make it fun and make it fun. But we can maybe it's maybe there should be climate change emojis, maybe there should be like, a group text where we're incorporating our daily like millennial, young hearted habits into what we need to do.

Yeah, like, take the news seriously, but also make it cute, I think, yeah. But ya know, we need to figure out what our next steps are like, as a generation of Pope might not be lost. So we do have other places to look to other than Congress, which is good. DAPA does still have power to make changes, just like they don't have as much power as they would have. Now it's up to private companies. And the state and local organisations are not federal organisations as as much as they use like these that power. Okay, so how there is hope? Yeah, the hope isn't who we elect to be a part of those organisations on the state level. So we're in charge of who we want to fill those seats. So I think that's, if anyone's listening to this and considering a role in environmental policy, please, please, take it seriously and go do it. Because we need someone who like knows what they're talking about in these in the seat. Right, right. Don't

just wait for somebody else to do it easily it up. And yeah, someone's

got to do it.

Somebody has to do it. Yeah. But

yeah, so the EPA does have a little bit of power to make change. And Biden can also work with the Justice Department on how we like I'm reviewing the recent Supreme Court ruling. Another thing that we can like look forward to is just the hope that that Congress updates the Clean Air Act, that would be really cool. Because if we start, we can start passing that at least it's a baby step into like, maybe pushing further and further into climate legislation and taking that more seriously, and just looking at states to create and execute their own policy. So I know California is working on their own thing. We're gonna look at devastating like wildfire problem. Every year, it gets worse and worse. I had to get evacuated in 2020. And I was just like, Oh, my God, it's happening. Oh, my God. California is like passing legislation to help with our own environmental standards. But it can't just be one state. It has to be all of us working together. So yes, yes. on a state level with the hope that each of these legislators can like join together and push a federal legislation. Yeah. So I just wanted to ask the Audrey like, how do you stay hopeful when you read all this news?

So

go grab a glass of water. We'll be right back after this short break. How do you stay hopeful Have you read all this news?

So I think my job as a comedian is, I think, you know, as you know, the world has just been getting darker and darker. And it's our job to get on stage every single night and make people forget their problems for a second. And, you know, kind of get on board with what you're saying and connect to you on like, a whole different level. And I think, you know, there is things to be said in a lighter way to get people more on board and connected, and that is what I'm experienced in. And that's what I feel like, I need to push myself to continue to do and, you know, with what I've even learned today, like, take that information and write some things. And that's how I feel like I can get a make a difference. And also, I feel like we have the technology and a lot of our old like our parents or our aunts and uncles, they don't really get on the technology like we do. So I think my job would be informing them and telling them to be informed and us talking about it as a family. No 100% Because we got a huge family. It takes up half this climate, my family Irish Catholic, and it's

got like, everyone's your uncle, and everyone's your cousin, that kind of situation, except

my cousin's cousin came to my show the other night, and my cousins, cousins, cousins, were on it. So I'd say so just at that point, we're like, Yeah, but that's, I mean, that's a minute. What about you,

I tried to like, look at comedy, as always, like, because it helps me to, like relieved kind of the sadness after Doom. Scrolling on Twitter every morning, I'm just like, let me look at some memes. And maybe that'll make me happy. Things that bring me hope. I think it's just when I hang out with like, I have a bunch of nieces and nephew. And I'm, whenever I'm on FaceTime, and we're hanging out. I'm just like thinking about them. And like their future. And I'm just like, I want to make sure I'm doing whatever I can to make sure like you have good air to breathe when you grow up. Or like you can you can feel safe in the places that you like, are travelling to and that the outdoors, especially when I'm going on hikes and stuff, I want to make sure these parks are going to be the same for them. Yeah. And then I kind of apply that to like everything. Like even when it comes to disabled rights. Like my little sister, she's physically and cognitively disabled. And when we go places, it's just like, I've we've experienced, like so much like so much injustice, and then just like rude people, and I'm just like, I want to do whatever I can to make sure you don't have to ever experience that. And anyone like in our situation of reps have experienced that either. Because other than that, like then what can I say for myself? Like I always like, go back to that I'm like, I want to be proud of myself and the way that I feel proud of myself this I'm a part of this better change.

Okay, well, I think it's time that we parachute into our 1% Tallinn which basically is that we want to recognise and talking about issues. Like, you know, what, everything we've been saying climate change, you know, like hope for future kids, you know, that's overwhelming. And these are huge problems. And, you know, it's hard to know where to start. We're talking about a bunch, but you know, like we said, we're, we're right there with you, you know, you're not alone. We're all in this

together together. I think with this, we'll start with like a 1% challenge. So like for the week 1% John's like, what can I do to be a part of like, a 1% of the change? And then maybe if like more people do it, then we're all like contributing? And of course, like that'll have a butterfly effect. So, Audrey, what is one thing you'd like to pledge to do for a week, or challenge yourself to do for a week and the efforts for climate change?

Well, I think something that I can do is well I'll do like a few things under one umbrella. I think the you know, being in California, the water thing, you know, I just really I need to invest in a good reusable water bottle because, you know, I tend to get plastic water bottles from gas stations sometimes on the way to shows or things like that. And sometimes I have extra water laying around in my permit that I'm not drinking that I should use to water my plants and I should turn off the sink more when I brush my teeth. I have

like a bunch of hydro flasks I was collecting but you know and like they start to get like rest of your stuff at the bottom. I'm like I probably shouldn't so I just we collect they're just sitting on a shelf

that is so buddies who are diehard about their Hydroflask like my friend who's like a hiker. She's like, I've had this baby for like three years. I was like you're probably drinking mode, sweetheart but you know

flavours it's not Doritos cool. Ranch small. Exactly. That's a really good one. Yeah, what about you probably do that, but let me see what's my 1% I need to start small with my baby steps. I'm gonna make my own coffee this week. I'm not gonna go drive to get coffee. Yeah, I don't do it every day. But like I like sometimes I'm like, This is my self care cup of coffee like from the drive thru. But like no, if I do that, I'll use a reusable cup. But for this week, I'm going to try to just use the coffee pot that I have that I just don't use Yes, I

use that coffee pot filled to the brim like I do. I won't be wasting gas. Yeah. Yes. Buy your plants or whatever the heck you have sit by the window. Joy a cup of coffee. Yeah, that sounds nice. Do that. That sounds great. Honestly, I'm gonna do that too. And you know the truth is we all have to do something. We can't make this huge difference. Overnight.

Rome wasn't built in a day. Yeah, yes, yes. So we can do it by small steps. So yes, thank you so much for listening and um, if you'd like to follow along on a show we are at lovestruck daily on Instagram and Twitter. Or you can also email us at lovestruck daily at Frolik dot media. You want to follow me that'd be cool i'll probably follow you back my Instagram is at Ganges gala ga n GCS like river GA L

and I would highly recommend following him Bega and you'll see requests from me events and and I am mortified that I was even following you but yes, this is gonna be friends on Instagram to make it official. Yeah, we really want to be friends. We will get that username in. But yeah, no, this has been absolutely fabulous. Thank you guys so much for listening my personal Instagram where you can find me is Audrey stew is our like Audrey Stewart but on our it's whatever. But yep, au Dr. EYSCWI S A R T. We need to give some credits to our researcher upraise Jesse Epstein and our editor Jen Jacobs. And we are produced by Abigail steckler With little Scorpion studios and we are executive produced by Frolik media. This is an I Heart Radio Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much. You guys. Thank you I'm in love with love with you. I'm in love with you.