Politics, Ecology and Everything Else In Between

In episode five of 'Politics, Ecology, and Everything in Between,' Rajeev interviews Chaitanya, a former IBM researcher who transitioned to herpetology and evolutionary biology. Chaitanya discusses his fascination with Draco lizards, their unique gliding ability, and the hypothesis that this trait evolved due to the presence of tall dipterocarp trees in Southeast Asia. The conversation explores Chaitanya's research journey, including his fieldwork across India, his PhD at Tel Aviv University, and the broader implications of his findings on the association between tall trees and gliding vertebrates globally. They also touch upon the challenges of conservation amid deforestation and the potential future directions for Chaitanya's research.

Megan Hobza - EP4

[00:00:00] Megan Hobza: The basic idea of what a locavore is, as someone who wants to keep. Money local and resources local because local self-reliance means that, you are better prepared as a community for, change. You're better, prepared for disaster and and you're also reducing your reliance on an extractive global economy.

[00:00:26] Rajeev: Welcome to episode four of politics and environment and everything in between. Hey, this is your host Rajeev. And this podcast is all about issues that affect all of us human beings. Because I believe today, everything is connected. In the past episodes, we had covered issues relating to water conservation, tribal identity and colonialism.

[00:00:50] Rajeev: In this episode, we talk to. Megan Hobza, a grant writer and community activist from Whittier, California. She specializes in locavore action, [00:01:00] which aims to keep the money local and support small businesses in her community. Thanks for making the time for the podcast, Megan. appreciate it a lot.

[00:01:10] Megan Hobza: I'm honored to be here. Thanks for having me, Rajeev.

[00:01:13] Rajeev: Awesome. That's great. So it's been what, more than a couple of decades, since I last saw you in Chennai.

[00:01:20] Megan Hobza: That's right. it was a really, it was a really cool part of that trip too, to get to see what your family, does. You all have such cool projects.

[00:01:32] Rajeev: Right. Yeah. I think my, my father-in-law was the one who,introduced you to, and he was working with NGOs. I think at some point.

[00:01:40] Megan Hobza: Yeah, this was an, I think this was, Grameen Bank's, pilot project to bring microfunding to rural women. So we got to visit this village. Where all the women in the village had each taken out a little loan and they combined their loans to buy a cow, and then they sold the milk from the cow every week.

[00:01:59] Megan Hobza: [00:02:00] And. Saved up money to buy another cow. And the bank had installed, ATMs in the countryside that, that took and gave smaller, coinage. so that, people with lower incomes could interact with them conveniently. The bank had installed, clean water resources in the village and also created, a central computer room.

[00:02:24] Megan Hobza: So there was internet access for the whole village. And it was just really inspiring. I mean, that seeing what small things could transform the life of a little community in some ways inspired the rest of my life and what I ended up doing locally in my own community.

[00:02:39] Rajeev: Right, right. I think it's, it's actually gone way beyond that today because, what's happened is there was this big push towards digitization and, I think the Indian government came out with something called the U P I or the Universal Payment Infrastructure.

[00:02:57] Megan Hobza: and it's like u p i is basically this, it's, [00:03:00] imagine it's like this structure of tracks or railroads all crisscrossing the length and breadth of the country and money travels on that And a lot of the local vendors now have QR codes. And because you have 4G LTE connections everywhere and everybody has a smartphone, you no longer accept cash. You just scan and pay the vendor. So, street vendors have smartphones and they have,they have bank accounts and. Digital wallets,

[00:03:30] Megan Hobza: Do they have to pay a fee to be allowed to have a digital wallet?

[00:03:34] Rajeev: no, it's actually, it's everybody. I think, you have the AAR card, which is like your digital ID and everything is connected to that digital id. And if you have to have the digital id, then you have to have a bank account. So everybody gets to open a free bank account. in post offices you can open a bank account now.

[00:03:53] Rajeev: yeah, so that's kind of transforming.

[00:03:55] Megan Hobza: that's amazing.Yeah. to, cut, stockholders out [00:04:00] of those transactions is what I think is so inspiring because that's been a big part of keeping money local is that it's always siphoned off to these. Kind of corporate Ponzi schemes.

[00:04:13] Rajeev: this has, really transformed large sections of the community. Of course, there's still a lot of work to be done, but they've done really well at, And especially UPI is, transformed, local, traders, the street traders, every shop you go will have a QR code now, so it's GPay. Become part the local language pretty much. Okay. I'll Gpay you, like Google it. So it's become part and parcel of, day-to-day activity in pretty much, more major parts of the country, I guess.

[00:04:45] Rajeev:

[00:04:45] Megan Hobza: Yeah, it just, it sounds like something that would strengthen local economies,

[00:04:48] Rajeev: yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. how does that tie in with what you do? explain to me what the term Locovore mean.

[00:04:56] Megan Hobza: So, the term locavore, which is, I think [00:05:00] that the basic idea of what a locavore is, as someone who wants to keep. Money local and resources local because local self-reliance means that, you are better prepared as a community for, change. You're better, prepared for disaster and and you're also reducing your reliance on an extractive global economy.

[00:05:26] Megan Hobza: every dollar that is, that's spent on local business, for example, cycles four times in the economy before exiting. So if you're purchase, if you're making your purchase at, a corporation with stockholders, that dollar goes out of your community immediately. So that undermines the strength of your local economy and it undermines the contribution that you make as an individual towards the self-reliance of your local economy and its contribution to reducing the effects [00:06:00] of climate change because the drivers of climate change are these extractive corporations. So people who consider themselves locavore are looking at ways to trade resources, right? Even not spend money at all, but, share and reuse as well as keep their dollars local, their money local.

[00:06:22] Rajeev: There's a lot of drive towards local business and small businesses as well, I guess.

[00:06:28] Megan Hobza: Right. So it supports local business, small business, barter, sharing, reuse, recycle, upcycle, all of those types of practices. worker owned business all falls under, loco or practice.

[00:06:44] Rajeev: Right. And what's your role in this? what kind of, activity or, work that you do in this field?

[00:06:51] Megan Hobza: So professionally, I work as a grant writer, which means that I develop funding proposals and, [00:07:00] big picture strategy for nonprofit organizations and nonprofit, also known as ngo O. Doesn't mean that an organization doesn't interact with money or have any extra money. It just means that there's a community benefit that is intended by this organization.

[00:07:17] Megan Hobza: So, it's not there to build a profit for an individual or for a group of individuals, but, any funds that are raised, are put into activities that benefit the local community or the national community in some cases. So, so I write sort of like business plans that are sent to funding bodies, government, private foundations, and and then those are assessed and then oftentimes, A grant is awarded to underwrite the project that's proposed.

[00:07:53] Megan Hobza: So that's my profession. and I do work with clients that do, locovore activities. A [00:08:00] vocationally I've spent over a decade. Doing some community organizing around, I guess you'd call it proofs of concept. so I've worked,I helped start at a time bank quite a while back, and I've worked with quite a few time banks in the Los Angeles area where I live.

[00:08:18] Megan Hobza: I helped start a backyard farm and, uh, a free store. These are projects where you're providing a platform, for neighbors to do the kind of, non-monetary sharing that I mentioned a little bit earlier is, there's, they're spending your local dollars and then there's the sharing, reuse, relationship building side of the locovore world.

[00:08:42] Megan Hobza: So, I guess I would say that between my profession and my avocation, I take. Maybe a holistic approach to being a Locovore.

[00:08:51] Rajeev: The concept of locovore, is it a new phenomenon or, What's the history behind it? And is it only in the US or is it [00:09:00] across the world?

[00:09:01] Megan Hobza: I'm not, a scholar of the term or the movement to the extent that I'm aware of how. How the word is used, maybe internationally, but it's certainly, in the United States, it's I think, a widely recognized, movement. it might be thought of as largely people who are sharing their backyard produce.

[00:09:23] Rajeev: like a farmer's market.

[00:09:24] Megan Hobza: Yeah. share sharing with your neighbors directly or buying from the farmer's market and, keeping their, your supply lines strong to folks that actually make a living off of, growing food. So food would be the first place where I think people would recognize that term being locavore.

[00:09:43] Megan Hobza: the idea of being conscious about where your food comes from means that you're doing your due diligence as a citizen of planet Earth.

[00:09:53] Megan Hobza: to make, to make your small contribution toward a sustainable lifestyle.

[00:09:57] Megan Hobza: Hypothetically, you could grow [00:10:00] all your own food and just eat that if you had an acre of land, you know, the fantasy about being living off the grid and all that stuff. I mean, that's also part of locavore cultures, the those fantasies and those lifestyles.

[00:10:13] Rajeev: I, and I'm not sure how many people actually know where their food comes from, because people think it comes from the supermarket, right?

[00:10:19] Megan Hobza: True. Right. and because it can come from all over the world, it's not, we don't eat with the seasons necessarily.

[00:10:24] Megan Hobza: yeah. There's this joke that I read on the internet People think, chocolate milk comes from brown cows, Right,

[00:10:31] Megan Hobza: I mean it's also, there's this big, consciousness towards using free range and also, farm to fork. A lot of these, are. I'm not sure whether they're nice marketing lines or actually happens. I don't know. especially this free range. You have those things labeled free range, but I don't know, whether it's actually free range, We, I mean, if you're concerned about,the impacts of, [00:11:00] animal husbandry on the environment or if you're interested in the treatment of farm animals, right? Those are two different things. big ag is going to have a pretty rough environmental impact. farming animals has a higher impact than almost any vegetable crop.

[00:11:19] Megan Hobza: and if you're concerned about, the cruelty side, which is less locavore and more vegan, but there, there's definitely overlap. There's greenwashing that prevents us from really making,a meaningful impact on our foodways. which is why people want to get to know more about where their food comes from and perhaps even have, be the own source of their food.

[00:11:44] Megan Hobza: Because you control the source of your food, then you're interacting with fewer questionable practices. the only thing of course is that what's also manageable with your day-to-day lifestyle, and so everybody ha has to kind of figure that out and make that choice for themselves.

[00:11:59] Rajeev: right. [00:12:00] Right. but, this era of, urbanization, more and more people living in cities rather than, in the hinterland. how does that work?

[00:12:09] Megan Hobza: I'm a big fan of waste diversion, half of all food that's produced, winds up in the landfill and we're talking about perfectly good food that people could eat. It just, the new food comes into the supermarket and replaces the food that's on the shelves. The food that was on the shelves five minutes ago was good enough to buy five minutes ago.

[00:12:32] Megan Hobza: It's still good enough to eat when it leaves the store, is a sunk cost for the business. It would cost them more money to take their staff and have them do something with it. And so it takes food rescue organizations like food banks and so on to coordinate with stores to pick up that food, to, to.

[00:12:54] Megan Hobza: Find new places, find people to eat it, or to compost it or take it to the [00:13:00] zoo. there's definitely ways to prevent that, perfectly good food from going into the landfill, but it requires funding and structure, to do that.

[00:13:08] Rajeev: Yeah. And also, the produce has to look a certain way for it to be sold in the supermarket as well. If it doesn't look polished and perfect, it gets rejected and, those also needs to have a avenue of being sold, right.

[00:13:24] Megan Hobza: I mean, if you take it to,if you take this, diverted food waste to a food bank,and put it out for people to take, they will take imperfect vegetables. They will take, boxes with the edge crushed and cans with the dent. at that point we understand that we're dealing with stuff that's perfectly good and we're getting it a bargain.

[00:13:42] Megan Hobza: so people feel less precious I think, when it gets to, to that point. And then, that's creating,a locally sustainable food culture where you don't have room to farm for everybody. I mean, you can farm on your porch, you can farm on your roof. If you have a backyard, you can farm in your backyard.

[00:13:59] Megan Hobza: But right. [00:14:00] Cities are more limited to the waste stream diversion, approach to, to, to making a local food way. Removes us from a reliance on corporate food culture

[00:14:14] Rajeev: And how much of a support is there,is it a movement that's supported by the establishment in terms of the government and stuff like that? Or is it a local grassroots movement?

[00:14:25] Megan Hobza: well in Los Angeles. food waste diversion. Is a practice of most local food banks, but, there's not a lot of government funding that's something that, that food banks need to, raise their own money to, to undertake. cuz you need to have refrigerated trucks and you need to have warehouse space.

[00:14:47] Megan Hobza: You need to have, you need to have infrastructure and, and a city or a county. Give you recognition, right? They might give you a certificate or an award, but they don't have dedicated, budget to make [00:15:00] sure that happens, in a,a fully structurally supported way.

[00:15:06] Megan Hobza: So it is grassroots by and large.

[00:15:09] Rajeev: But what are the components of a,of Locavore? I mean, for example, in my, in the neighborhood or the community that I live in, that is, um, Community garden that people can go and volunteer and they grow herbs and crops, and people can come and pick that up and, take it home like coriander and herbs and all of that stuff that they grow there.

[00:15:30] Rajeev: And also there is a local market on Sunday, which is extremely, popular. but other than that, what are the things that, the community can do apart from these kind of activities, in order to encourage, local business and locavore action.

[00:15:47] Megan Hobza: beyond food ways, and I wanna pause and say, people learning how to cook is really important for waste food, waste diversion too. so, so some other [00:16:00] issues that, that we see, where I live, and I think that this is a, global phenomenon. can people afford to live where they work?

[00:16:10] Megan Hobza: That's really. Do people have to commute out? Do people have to spend, 2, 3, 4 hours on the road every day to get to their jobs or can they walk to their job? the environmental impact of being able to work where you live is pretty obvious, right? Traffic, pollution. but the impact on a community, is.

[00:16:30] Megan Hobza: Is sort of invisible when you have your entire working class,gone for 10 hours of the day and they come home exhausted and all they can do is pop food in the microwave and sit in front of the tv exhausted. you don't have people in the community that are prepared, that have the energy or the bandwidth to go out and interact with each other, build community.

[00:16:53] Megan Hobza: Make trusting friendships and, try to make the community a better place. You're just tired you [00:17:00] lose the, you lose great people who could be sitting on city council. You lose, people who could be running organizations as volunteers. you lose all of this social capital That happens invisibly when people drive out of their garage at 6:00 AM and back into their garage at 8:00 PM you don't realize what you've lost as a community.

[00:17:21] Rajeev: Right. I completely agree. one of the things that, I went out and did was, make contacts in the local community. There's local art space, which is a safe space for young people to come and practice art and stuff like that. do photo walks so people can discover their neighborhood, You don't have to travel hundreds of kilometers to some remote beach to take beautiful photographs.

[00:17:45] Megan Hobza: That awareness of, engaging with the community is I think, very basic for something like this, Yeah. Well, and and at that point getting involved with, with local politics becomes important because, [00:18:00] your local city council, is the one that decides how many affordable units are built. Over the course of a year, you know what housing stock is approved in the city where I live.

[00:18:12] Megan Hobza: Uh, the city council, like most conservative runs, small and mid city, size. city councils has rejected all affordable housing and new developments, even though it's required by California state law. we just have been deprived of, I basically 30 years of affordable housing. We have a local college.

[00:18:34] Megan Hobza: I'm a, I'm an alum of Whittier College. I live in Whittier, California, and so we've got all these well-educated graduates who, right, they come in, they get their four year education, and they exit Whittier entirely because they can't afford to live here because there's no affordable housing.

[00:18:51] Megan Hobza: And,we lose people who have free time to give as community leaders. if they're, if they have part-time [00:19:00] work, can't afford to live here, to contribute their leadership. If, people retire and they're living on a pension, they cannot continue to live in Whittier unless they're a homeowner.

[00:19:10] Megan Hobza: So there's, there's this exodus out of cities like mine, of all the people who could give back to a community who have the time, who have perhaps the entrepreneurship, who have the education to really give to a community. What do you have left when you have, when the, when the sons and daughters, when the kids of the people.

[00:19:32] Megan Hobza: who had kids here when their children can no longer afford to stay in the community. That it hollows out a community and leaves you with

[00:19:41] Megan Hobza: not a lot.

[00:19:41] Rajeev: Is it because they want to protect the suburbia that they have there, or, what's the reason behind this?

[00:19:50] Megan Hobza: So, conservative city councils are about protecting the status quo. So by and large elected officials are homeowners and by and large homeowners [00:20:00] and elected officials are white. So there's a subtle racism going on. preventing the browns from home ownership, from being able to rent locally.

[00:20:09] Megan Hobza: And, uh, you know, it's not something that's said aloud, but it's part of the dynamic.

[00:20:14] Rajeev: Especially in such a progressive state like California,

[00:20:17] Megan Hobza: but you know, just a slightly less than half of the population. Conservative, right? It's just there's a slight major, or, the voting population, let's say, because, um,people who are racialized, marginalized are gonna be disenfranchised from voting. that's part of the deal.

[00:20:36] Megan Hobza: And so, and I could, we could go into a lot of detail on how that happens,

[00:20:40] Megan Hobza: but what happens is, the people in cities like Whittier who are voting are gonna be slightly majority conservative, and that's how city councils are conservative, keep their seats. Yeah. Yeah. And our, and Whittier is,70% Latino,

[00:20:55] Rajeev: Ah,

[00:20:55] Megan Hobza: So activating voters is a really important part of locavore [00:21:00] practice.

[00:21:00] Rajeev: Yeah. I think,that's a big issue, right? one is activating the voters on the other hand, conservatives don't want you to vote.

[00:21:07] Megan Hobza: Right. And so they'll do tricky things like,move the voting day for the city, away from the date that's used by the county and the nation. So it's some weird off day and people miss it.

[00:21:18] Rajeev: Even in, Auckland the percentage of, voting for local office, which is your mayors and in counselors, is pathetically low. and what's happened is people who vote are the older white people and all the young people don't vote and you get the wrong Yes. That's what happens here too,

[00:21:38] Megan Hobza: becausepeople don't wanna, people don't wanna pay attention sitting through a city council meeting, it is both boring and enraging. And neither of those things attract people to paying attention to what's going on. And this is why local journalism's so important to, to support, right? Because you want that filter of someone who's gonna have, be paid to sit through the city council [00:22:00] meeting, digest it, and then give you the low down so that you didn't have to do it yourself.

[00:22:04] Rajeev: true. Yeah. And that, that awareness is so, so, so important cuz it's, it comes back to by you in the ass because it happened in Auckland when the floods happened. We had a very incompetent mayor at the top and a very incompetent management. And they totally messed it up.

[00:22:22] Megan Hobza: Yeah. And we can look back just a couple of years to, the incompetent mayors of any city we may have been living in about how they handled Covid. There are people who, many people who died because, of incompetent elected officials, hundreds of thousands.

[00:22:35] Rajeev: true. I think local activism is very important and, the awareness of, being engaged with the local community is extremely important. I can't stress that enough, So now it's a nice, way to segue into your next topic, which is your interest in. in fashion or reusing fashion.

[00:22:55] Rajeev: can you tell us something about that?

[00:22:57] Megan Hobza: having run, the Whittier free store for a [00:23:00] couple of years,I was surprised by how many clothes that people tried to bring in that would be stained, ripped, torn, buttons missing. We weren't accepting any of that stuff because

[00:23:11] Megan Hobza: We didn't have staff, or volunteers that could handle fixing all of these clothes that were coming in that were damaged. We had to turn those away. But you don't wanna be the person who then has a bag of damaged clothes and puts it in the landfill. What do you do with your own stuff, right? that doesn't fit it no longer belongs in your closet as it is in this moment.

[00:23:34] Megan Hobza: So, it's great to have clothing swaps. It's great to have you. there's a thing called repair cafes where you can write, take your stuff and, get your buttons sewn back on, get your zipper fixed, get your electronics fixed. you have people in your local area who are willing to organize a repair cafe if you're willing to organize one yourself, that's a lot of fun.

[00:23:53] Megan Hobza: that's a neat pop-up to do, but it's sort of a daily practice, right? I got [00:24:00] interested in. how do I turn this problem into, an opportunity that is fun, exciting, creative, artistic, because, I'm not going to do stuff outta guilt. I will do something because it's fun. I think most people are that way.

[00:24:20] So I'm like, how do I make this? I had a navy blue sweatshirt and it had a little bleach stain on it, the size of a bea And, and it was a boring sweatshirt. I wasn't that interested in it, and I thought maybe I'd cut it up for rags, and I thought, what if I did something to it that made somebody else want it?

[00:24:40] Megan Hobza: And then I could give it to someone and they'd be excited about it. what do I have to do to this sweatshirt to make somebody else want it? So I,I'd seen on YouTube that people can do bleach, tie dye. you know, you put the rubber bands on like you would for a tie dye project except for then you, you spray it or dip it in bleach water.

[00:24:59] Megan Hobza: And [00:25:00] so I did that to the sweatshirt and it started looking cool. And then, the bean size bleach stain kind of went to the wayside. You didn't really notice it anymore cuz of all the other bleach, but it sort of looked like a night sky at that point. And that was really interesting to me.

[00:25:14] Megan Hobza: And I thought, what if I put a cartoon character on here, like with fabric paint and the cartoon characters, like somehow having an outer space experience. Right. And so I f and so I found this cartoon character named Tato, that, and so I put Tato on the couch where he belongs because he's a couch po Tato.

[00:25:37] Megan Hobza: and he's seen on the sweatshirt that I painted, he's seen hurdling through space on a rocket powered. into stars painted the rocket flame. And I have no personal particular attachment to Tato. I just think that he's cute.I just thought that'd be a fun thing to put in the night sky.

[00:25:56] Megan Hobza: And so I, I posted this on,on a creative [00:26:00] mending, visible mending Facebook group, and 200 people liked it. And people said, oh, you should sell those. I'm like, I'm not gonna make and sell t-shirts and sweatshirts. I'm like, I'm, I'm looking for the person who needs this. And and a woman living in Australia was like, I need it.

[00:26:18] Megan Hobza: I'm like, great. give me your address. She's I'm like, yeah, I'm looking for the person who needs a sweatshirt. So I sent it to her. Turns out she runs a Makerspace in Adelaide and she gives lectures to people about Creative Reuse and she wears the sweatshirt to her lectures. That was so rewarding to me.

[00:26:41] Rajeev: That's amazing.

[00:26:44] Megan Hobza: and I thought, I wanna make a YouTube channel about this because I'm having so much fun.

[00:26:48] Megan Hobza: I love seeing people do these kinds of projects on YouTube. I'll watch it, I'll watch for hours. People do this kind of stuff. So how about if I contribute to that [00:27:00] flow of information and kind of share with people how you can take this sad problem of a broken. And turn it into an exciting art opportunity.

[00:27:11] Megan Hobza: So that's my concept.

[00:27:12] Rajeev: It's interesting cuz we have so much, stuff in a wardrobe which just occupies space and.

[00:27:18] Rajeev: we never use it. And maybe when you do your spring cleaning, you need to take it all out, and maybe convert it into a weekend project.

[00:27:27] Megan Hobza: You know, just yesterday I spent the day, a couple hours of the day, I'm dyeing a couple of cashmere sweaters that were colors that I didn't like, so I made them a color that I like, I probably could have found a taker for a Cashmere sweater, but I wanted it. I liked the shape.

[00:27:42] Megan Hobza: I just wanted a different color.

[00:27:44] Rajeev: how big of a problem is fast fashion? I mean, this is a great way to actually reduce,unnecessary things going into the landfill. are there other ways of preventing, clothes, just what you [00:28:00] do with, unwanted food produce. Is there something that we can do for, unwanted fashion?

[00:28:05] Megan Hobza: Well, yeah, I mean there's certainly,the time honor our tradition of thrift stores, which. I've always loved a thrift store. thrift stores cannot handle the volume of donations that they get. generally only a small portion of the clothes donated make it onto the floor.

[00:28:25] Megan Hobza: So this is also why I wanna address ways that we can deal with visible repair, invisible repair. But you know, there are now retailers that will take your secondhand clothes and resell them for you online. So that's an interesting approach. I think if you have stuff that's in good condition, and you wanna make sure that it's not gonna end up, getting shredded because there wasn't enough room on the thrift store floor for your item, even though it's in good condition.

[00:28:57] Megan Hobza: If you send it to, thread up, if you [00:29:00] know it's in good condition and it's recent, within the last 10 years, they will put it up for sale. So this is there, there are options for diverting that waste stream as well.

[00:29:10] Rajeev: It's part of the circular economy,

[00:29:11] Megan Hobza: It is part of the circular economy if your t-shirt is full of holes and you've just, it's lived its life, you can absolutely cut it up and use it for rags. That's okay. You know, that's a second life.

[00:29:23] Rajeev: Absolutely.

[00:29:23] Megan Hobza: I have a friend who,Crochets award-winning rag rugs out of t-shirt scraps that we all give her. Lot of things you can do.

[00:29:33] Rajeev: I think this, whole,this mending thing that you're doing, and the repair concept has taken on a lot of steam in recent years, especially in, Consumer electronics where,people like Apple were totally against it and they were making products which cannot be repaired, but now I think, even legislation has come in, which,

[00:29:54] Rajeev: has actually forced their hand. And now you get, like kits where you can [00:30:00] actually repair iPhones. Which is a big step because if you open it up, the warranty is .

[00:30:08] Rajeev: So it's a big step you know, reusing old phones.

[00:30:12] Megan Hobza: right? I mean, talk about, major environmental damage. the rare metals that go into, creating smartphones.

[00:30:21] Megan Hobza: Reuse is always the first best way that, you know, we have available to us as individuals right. to prevent environmental damage. Right. We can be, we can get out there and we can vote. We can advocate for legislation, we can do things as community leaders, but on an individual basis, reuse is number one, way that we can benefit the planet.

[00:30:42] Rajeev: absolutely. But the good thing with batteries is,with the new technology, the new type of batteries is, has a longer life. And actually when we can repurpose them with paetrol, we cannot, right?

[00:30:55] Megan Hobza: Right.

[00:30:55] Megan Hobza: And I wanna put this thought out there too, cause I know we're coming to the end of our conversation. [00:31:00] we still have people who will, we will still need frontline workers. We still need people who are out. Doing physical work that supports all of the rest of us who are privileged to work from home.

[00:31:11] Megan Hobza: And I wanna mention this concept of the solidarity economy. which means that we're all looking out for each other because we are all the working class, we are all affected by, the global economy in ways that are similar. the global economy devastates us all. So if we think about how we're interacting with other people and sharing our privilege and, and being generous with other people financially as well, making sure that people don't, slip through the cracks.

[00:31:43] Megan Hobza: The solidarity economy also contributes to a strong local

[00:31:47] Rajeev: and where can people get resources about all this? Are there places that,you can read about this in terms of, how can I be locally involved? What are the things that I can do in my local neighborhood? in terms [00:32:00] of Locavore action, et cetera, do you have resources that I can share with the audience?

[00:32:06] Megan Hobza: in the United States, I would point people towards, strong towns usa They're a great resource for thoughts on big picture thinking in your local town.

[00:32:17] Rajeev: Sounds good. Are there any, any parting thoughts that you wanna close the conversation on?

[00:32:21] Megan Hobza: I think it's so important for us to find ways. To both understand the gravity of the situation with the climate, and the future of humanity, and also not get pulled under by feeling overwhelmed by it, feeling good about your life. joy is an act of resistance, so it's important to find ways to live your life.

[00:32:44] That are affirming and make your response to,to climate change and environmental devastation that make your life better, not worse. So embrace your joy.

[00:32:55] Rajeev: Awesome. That's a great thought to end the podcast on.

[00:32:59] Rajeev: Thanks [00:33:00] Megan for coming on the podcast. And I really enjoyed this conversation.

[00:33:04] Rajeev: What I'd take away from this conversation is that as individuals, we need to engage with the local community and contribute in any which way you can. Just being aware of the local issues is a great start. You can connect with Megan by email. Her email is [email protected]. I will put that in the show notes. As always, thanks for supporting this podcast. I aim to release one episode every month from now on. So I will see you in the next episode.

[00:33:31] Rajeev: This is Rajeev signing off.

Welcome to another episode of politics, ecology, and everything in between. Hey, this is Rajeev. We are back after a long hiatus, DJ, and I. For this discussion, we picked a very interesting topic. Who is a tribal. A tribal is a very interesting term. Was Tarzan a tribal. The very image of a noble Savage. Or is it an invented term? And how is it relevant today? To answer all these questions, we have my good friend DJ.

Thanks for supporting this podcast. Do send feedback to [email protected] about this episode. 

Ep. 2 - Peter Mayer

[00:00:00] Rajeev: Hello and welcome to episode 2 of Politics, Ecology, and Everything Else in Between, and I'm your host, Rajiv. Today, we are going to talk about water. Water is essential for all life forms and human development. Our lives depend on it. Sometimes our livelihoods depend on it too. With climate change, the supply of water has the potential to influence geopolitics, diplomacy, and even conflict.

[00:00:26] Rajeev: To discuss this very topic, I am talking to Peter Mayer from Boulder, Colorado. Long time friend of Madurai, my hometown, and an expert in the science of water management. He heads an organization called WaterDM. Over his career, Peter has worked with hundreds of water utilities and organizations across the US and Canada.

[00:00:48] Rajeev: So, without further ado, cue music.

[00:00:52] Rajeev: [00:01:00] So, hello, Peter. Welcome to the show. Hello. Hey, Peter. It's been a while since we've been in touch. So, just to begin with, for our listeners, could we start with a brief intro about yourself and what you do?

[00:01:17] Peter Mayer: Sure. So, my name is Peter Mayer. I'm a professional engineer. I have a degree in civil engineering, and my specialty is in water resources, and particularly in water management, and on the demand side of water management.

[00:01:37] Peter Mayer: So I got interested. First in water when I was living in India, actually in Madurai, and that decided I needed to get a technical degree in order to pursue a career in water. And so I got my civil engineering degree and then I ended up studying where people use water as part of my master's research and using [00:02:00] small devices.

[00:02:01] Peter Mayer: called data loggers that record the flow of water as it enters the house through the water meter. And then we are able to, to then use computers to, to interpret that high frequency flow data and actually measure water use inside the house, including toilet flushes and clothes washer machines and dishwashers, faucets and showers and irrigation systems.

[00:02:26] Peter Mayer: And to break all these different water uses into categories and quantify them for the. for the, uh, accurately for the first time. So that really launched my career. I started doing that type of research for water utilities, and it's really led to a variety of different interesting projects and things that I've worked on over the years, including testifying at the U S Supreme court as an expert in, uh, municipal and urban water use on behalf of the state of Georgia, where I understand you used to live.

[00:02:56] Peter Mayer: And so they're actually still, uh, Georgia and Florida are [00:03:00] still engaged in a, in a legal dispute over, over the river, and I was hired as the expert from Georgia. So, I, I view, I have a lot to, to say about water, and I'm interested to have a discussion with you. Interesting.

[00:03:14] Rajeev: So Peter, how did Madurai inspire your interest in water?

[00:03:18] Rajeev: Well,

[00:03:19] Peter Mayer: my first thought was that I wanted to do international development work that I really uh, Amanda and I my wife Amanda We really enjoyed living abroad. And so that's initially what we thought we would we wanted to do And I determined that the water was the most one of the most critical resource issues.

[00:03:36] Peter Mayer: It was just so obvious and really Living in mother, I really brought it to the surface. You see the river that would dry up every year, essentially go from some points being bank to bank and then other points just being completely dry trickle and then also the groundwater changes and everybody is constantly worried about groundwater levels, seawater intrusion, so many issues related to [00:04:00] water and so that, and then, you know, when I also think back at it, I also had an inspiration from my childhood.

[00:04:06] Peter Mayer: A man named Gilbert White, who was a family friend who was really one of the most eminent floodplain scholars and researchers. And so he lived in Boulder. And so, so I, there's sort of these combination of factors led me, I would say in, into it, but it was pure chance that I ended up studying water use and then how everything else kind of emerged.

[00:04:30] Peter Mayer: I'm a real believer in sort of, you have to. Seize opportunities. You never know where opportunities might exist.

[00:04:38] Rajeev: Absolutely. So the first question that I have for you comes from one of the James Bond films.

[00:04:46] Peter Mayer: Ahahahahaha! Bum ba dum bum bum bum bum bum ba dum bum ba da

[00:04:50] Rajeev: da da da!

[00:04:51] Peter Mayer: Yeah,

[00:04:53] Rajeev: ahahaha! So this, in 2008 there was a film came out, uh, called, uh, Quantum of Solace.

[00:04:59] Rajeev: It starred, I [00:05:00] mean, it's a James Bond film, and, um Daniel Craig. Daniel Craig, yes. And he's pitted against an evil criminal syndicate. It's bent on global domination, right? So typical of a James Bond film. But the twist here is This evil syndicate, or the evil criminal behind it, is actually plotting to seize control of Bolivia's water supply.

[00:05:25] Peter Mayer: Of the country of Bolivia.

[00:05:26] Rajeev: Right. We talk about water as the next oil. So, does it sound like, uh, familiar to you?

[00:05:35] Peter Mayer: Yes, yes, yes, and, and, and like, so there's some similarities actually, you know, between water and oil, and, and, so the first thing would be the physicality, I mean, like, like oil, water is this is, It's a physical, it's a liquid substance, although it can take all, you know, three different states.

[00:05:56] Peter Mayer: So transporting it is a big deal, and it's very [00:06:00] expensive. And so in order to make it worthwhile to, you know, transport it long distances, you have to pretty much value it similarly to oil, otherwise it doesn't make economic sense. The, the unlike oil though, I mean, what we see about oil is found in many places of the world, but not all places.

[00:06:18] Peter Mayer: Water is pretty much found almost everywhere, even under deserts, but there are truly, in the world, water rich places and very water poor, water scarce places. Right.

[00:06:30] Rajeev: So that's where your whole hydro politics comes into play, right?

[00:06:35] Peter Mayer: Yeah, because you don't always have People settling and choosing to live in the place where the water is, although that generally has been once again, if you look at the scope of human history, water is pretty much determined where people have been able to sell.

[00:06:50] Peter Mayer: And it's also, but they think perhaps ended. So from the big level, there, there are some water resources which are shared by nations. [00:07:00] And so India and China share the Himalayas, and with Nepal, you know, other countries. So the water resources there could obviously need to be shared. And there, and in Pakistan, there could be disputes.

[00:07:14] Peter Mayer: When you have those type of Boundaries, international boundaries that, that separate the water, the water resources. But as we both know from our experience in India, the politics of water get much more local than that. And in many ways, the most bitter conflicts that we see are longstanding conflicts of water tend to be somewhat more local than we've seen.

[00:07:37] Peter Mayer: We, as opposed to nations fighting, it's much more like states or. Provinces fighting or regions or counties that are fighting or maybe even individual water users who are fighting against each other over who has, you know, the right to the Calvary, the Colorado, the Apalachicola, whatever the source of

[00:07:58] Rajeev: water.

[00:07:59] Rajeev: Right. Yeah. In [00:08:00] fact, I was just reading up for this podcast and I was looking at, of course, the closest dispute that comes. To my mind is the Kaveri River and incidentally it started off in 1892 because the, it was back then that was the Mysore Maharaja, it was a separate state. Yeah. The Madras Presidency was controlled by the British.

[00:08:25] Peter Mayer: Yes.

[00:08:27] Rajeev: And incidentally, Kaveri originates in the Coorg, which is in Karnataka

[00:08:31] Peter Mayer: now. Right, and so did they dam it? Did they block off the

[00:08:34] Rajeev: Kaveri? Yeah, so that's That's where that whole thing comes. And then, uh, that's where it started. Yeah. That's where it started, I think. And in, I think in the 19, the start of the 19 hundreds, I think these guys wanted to dam upstream and the Brits objected.

[00:08:52] Peter Mayer: Yeah. For good reason. But they, uh, were ultimately unsuccessful. They did dam the Cauvery and it did result has resulted in ceaseless [00:09:00] conflict ever since then. Have you, did you ever see the Cauvery flow bank to bank? Yeah. Cause I went there every time I went there, it was just this giant dry desert looking thing.

[00:09:09] Peter Mayer: And I was just so big. I'd love to see that thing full of water. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:09:16] Rajeev: So, I mean, this has been going on for years and years. So right now we are also looking at. Water scarcity, right? Climate change, also water contamination due to climate change.

[00:09:27] Peter Mayer: Well, humans, yeah, we've contaminated the water, mostly because of human stupidity and ignorance.

[00:09:35] Rajeev: So, I mean, how does climate change come into play? Because I was reading that because the sea levels are rising and most of the cities are on the coast, right? And because the sea level is rising, the seawater is pushing into the water table. And the water's becoming more saline?

[00:09:54] Peter Mayer: That's one of the, that's one of the issues that's happening.

[00:09:57] Peter Mayer: I think where I live here in, in [00:10:00] Colorado in the United States, the front lines of climate change are, is happening on the Colorado River. Colorado River originates here in Colorado and also in Wyoming and Utah, and then flows down through, through Arizona and Nevada and provides a lot of water to California.

[00:10:19] Peter Mayer: And it, the two largest reservoirs in the United States, Lake Powell and Lake Mead are there, and currently, the combined contents of those two massive reservoirs is about 40%, standing just over 40 percent of capacity, and another dry winter, so we're, so what we're seeing, I think, from climate change is The, uh, river that, that previously was able to produce enough, there was enough snowpack and there was enough melt off that would occur annually, and that is not occurring anymore.

[00:10:55] Peter Mayer: And now the usage has caught up, and we're seeing an imbalance, and it's, [00:11:00] it's coming very fast, uh, faster than people realize. On the order of 5, 10, 15 years, we, we could see severe impacts. Yeah, I

[00:11:09] Rajeev: mean, I can see it in Auckland, because Auckland, uh, we've been, water scarcity is very real, and the local water body is constantly advertising to make people have shorter showers.

[00:11:22] Peter Mayer: Well, is Auckland, does Auckland rely on snow melt? How does Auckland get its water supply?

[00:11:26] Rajeev: I think there's a, no, it doesn't, I don't think it relies on water melt. There's a local reservoir

[00:11:32] Peter Mayer: here. Yeah, but that water for the reservoir has to come from somewhere. Does it come from the mountains, or? Possibly.

[00:11:38] Peter Mayer: Possibly. Okay, so this is important. Most people don't even know where their water comes from. Exactly. Exactly.

[00:11:45] Rajeev: I mean, I'm, okay, it's in point. So, I mean, what do you think are the steps that we need to take to combat all this? Like, what are the, I mean, climate change is real, but obviously we have to adapt to it.

[00:11:58] Rajeev: So, one thing is [00:12:00] possibly we need to make lifestyle changes, number one. And possibly the way we use water or reuse water, maybe? I don't know. Like, what are the options do

[00:12:10] Peter Mayer: we have? Well, we have a lot of options. It's a very interesting situation. So let's, first thing is to realize that the water supply is limited and that, you know, what you have And you need to, you also need to establish the volume of water that you're going to have each year.

[00:12:27] Peter Mayer: And if you don't have enough, then you may not be able to have, to do all the things, or have all the people that you'd originally perhaps envisioned that you wanted to have. There's tough choices associated with water. But in terms of what things we can actually do, let's just think about it from like, here we are.

[00:12:44] Peter Mayer: We're in this pickle and we'll do everything we can to slow down climate change, but it's inevitable. We're going to see reduced water available water. So the first thing we have to do is manage. The groundwater extremely carefully. Groundwater is going to be this precious resource [00:13:00] that can help as a backup.

[00:13:02] Peter Mayer: But if we use it all up, that's it. I mean, especially if surface water become very irregular, the groundwater. It needs to be managed in a, in, in very carefully so that it does not, it does not get exhausted and we need to work on replenishing it. We also need to focus on storage of in groundwater. Most of the future of water storage, I do not think is going to be in surface water reservoirs like we have.

[00:13:28] Peter Mayer: I think we, I think most of the future of water storage will be underground. In, in, uh, through aquifer storage, because first of all, it's a lot less environmentally damaging, and then you also eliminate evaporation, and so many times, and they're going to need to figure out ways to store water in aquifers when you have flooding, so trying to take advantage of these maybe more extreme events that are going to occur someplace, so the water doesn't all go away, that somehow you find a way to capture it.

[00:13:59] Peter Mayer: Store [00:14:00] it underground. Hopefully, you know, some people are some places are working that are doing aquifer storage right now. Very successfully. It requires the proper geography. All right, so that's the first thing. Groundwater management. Then thinking going up from there. We need to think that surface water and this is the water from lakes and reservoirs and all that.

[00:14:17] Peter Mayer: It's going to become much less Uh huh. Or much more irregular, I would say, and so we need to consider, you may, you could build a new reservoir, you may not have enough water to fill that new reservoir all the time, so is it worth spending all that money to, to build? That's the other beauty of the underground storage.

[00:14:36] Peter Mayer: So, from the more personal perspective, water is very local, so there are going to be parts, and people, and places where there really is an ample water supply, where you're probably, don't need to worry nearly as much about where you're, whether there's going to be enough water in the future. Those are probably the places where we'd like more people to live in the future.

[00:14:57] Peter Mayer: Unfortunately, I'm not sure that's what's really happening, but you know, [00:15:00] you can think along the Mississippi River. There's, there are gigantic bodies of water, the Great Lakes, the, there are places that, that are fairly water rich. Conversely, there are also places that are very water scarce and places like Arizona, I'm talking mostly to the U.

[00:15:17] Peter Mayer: S. United States references, but in the Middle East, certainly Jordan and much of the Middle East is tremendously water scarce. They're going to rely on desalination. I haven't gotten into that. Although I want to finish the more basic water stuff. So you got to consider surface water. Snowpack is going to be less.

[00:15:35] Peter Mayer: You might get more rainfall, it might come more intensely, it's going to be unevenly distributed. You got to think about how that all these different things and how you might take advantage of it. You got to use less water. So in cities and towns and we've done a really good job of this overall and we've actually in in many parts of the world including Australia and New Zealand put into place codes and standards that have reduced the [00:16:00] flush volume of Toilets so that you can't buy an inefficient fixture anymore.

[00:16:04] Peter Mayer: Clothes washers are more water efficient and energy efficient. So we've succeeded in starting to drive down consumption. We're still working on outdoor urban usage. I think that's the, we still have a lot of issues in place. People's places where you have green lawns and swimming pools and amenities that may just not make sense to have in certain places.

[00:16:28] Peter Mayer: But then there's this bigger picture of water that's used in cities. And water that's also used in farms and for agriculture that's relying on the same water source. And so like in Colorado, agriculture uses about 85 percent or 90 percent of all of the water in the state. The cities are only using 10 percent.

[00:16:51] Peter Mayer: So a comparatively small transfer of water from farms to cities could Put the cities in a comfortable position [00:17:00] for a hundred years or more. How you manage that and what that looks like and what that does to agriculture is a big question, but that's a true, that's a similar story to a lot of places, and I think you're going to see that, that the one time where water does flow uphill, it up flows uphill to money.

[00:17:18] Peter Mayer: And the money is usually in the cities where people, if they want the water, they will have come up with the money to buy it from somewhere else, hopefully not from too far away. The thing we're starting to see is proposals for very long pipelines, essentially giant straws with pumps and very energy intensive.

[00:17:37] Peter Mayer: That to me is not good planning. I think it's much better to think about the resources that you have. locally, and to try to plan your community to rely on what you have available locally. And if it's not enough, then you just shouldn't maybe be as big or grow to be as much as so you outgrow your water supply.

[00:17:57] Peter Mayer: So

[00:17:57] Rajeev: I mean, going back to agriculture, but this [00:18:00] agriculture uses so much water, do you think the farming practices, all that has to change in order to adapt to the, the most scarce water kind of situation?

[00:18:11] Peter Mayer: I think it does. I think it will have to change. I'm more optimistic about that. I don't know why. Maybe because I know less about it.

[00:18:19] Peter Mayer: But it strikes me that we, that we have the capacity to plan agriculture and think about agriculture perhaps on a bigger, more macro scale. Think about if water becomes Truly, this particularly scarce resource and we can optimize where we're growing different types of crops. In Colorado, we grow a lot of alfalfa, which is then fed to animals.

[00:18:45] Peter Mayer: A lot of it is exported even. So, you know, that might not be the highest and best use of the Colorado River water at some point. And so I, this is where you would think maybe the free market and economics might help. Determine what [00:19:00] really, you know, what, unfortunately, what may happen is the water becomes this commodity.

[00:19:03] Peter Mayer: And so then it gets removed from the farm. And that's not good because there's a lot of benefits to irrigated, irrigated lands. And we need to feed people. So, so we, it's not like you cannot, you can't just say, Oh, we're not going to do that anymore. No, we have to keep doing, we have to keep doing agriculture.

[00:19:18] Peter Mayer: There's no question about it. We just got to do it more efficiently. And I'm hopeful that that's possible. But it's got to be done very carefully through through identifying the best lands that you don't want to remove. And you know, then maybe which ones it makes more sense to, to occasionally fallow or to take some water.

[00:19:36] Peter Mayer: It's tough though. It's, that's a tough call, but it's that I see that as an essential movement worldwide as cities grow.

[00:19:44] Rajeev: Do you influence policy? I mean, as a professional, do you influence policymaking? Like do you lobby with? What do you do to help your local governments, state governments to influence policy in order to make these changes?

[00:19:55] Rajeev: So,

[00:19:56] Peter Mayer: that's a very good question. So, I'm, my career, [00:20:00] I'm a consultant and I would have to answer yes, I do try to influence policy. But, from a variety of different Perspectives and ways over the years. So just at the most local level, I advocated very strongly for a conservation oriented water rate structure for our own utility to make sure that we build for water in a way that, that rewards people who are efficient.

[00:20:24] Peter Mayer: And makes people who are inefficient pay more. And it's cool, because it's a water budget system. So it's actually based on your own landscape and the size of your own yard. And so if you have a bigger yard, you get a little bigger allotment for outdoor use. Anyway, but, so that's something. And then also, I have I've worked for many years as a senior advisor to the, uh, an organization called the Alliance for Water Efficiency, which advocates for water efficiency programs and policies at a national level, because that's actually very important.

[00:20:55] Peter Mayer: That's how we've achieved a lot of the savings in the urban sector and the [00:21:00] municipal sectors through policy and code changes, things that mandated flush volumes for toilets and maximum set, maximum flow rates. And then also through voluntary programs like we have this voluntary program called WaterSense.

[00:21:15] Peter Mayer: I think Australia has one too with like WaterStars or something. But anyway, they rate, you basically essentially approve. products that are water efficient or more water efficient than other ones. And so it helps when you go to the store to buy something, it's obvious, Oh, well, that one uses less water.

[00:21:31] Peter Mayer: I'm gonna, it's got the label on it. So those things actually should make a big difference. And the easiest savings, the easiest water savings to get in the urban sector are things that, that don't require behavior changes. You mentioned taking a shorter shower. That to me is one of the hardest things to get people to do.

[00:21:49] Peter Mayer: Because who will be a shower is one of those. Pleasures of life. He get a hot shower. A mother is a difference where you don't have a hot shower. You're just dumping it on your head. [00:22:00] Then a short shower is not a problem. But if you have the luxury of hot water, that you've spent a lot of money for your hot water.

[00:22:06] Peter Mayer: It's unlikely you're going to really restrict that, but. Changing the flush volume of your toilet, as long as it does the job as well, who cares? So, and similarly with a clothes washer or a dishwasher, as long as you're getting the service that that device is providing, you don't really care how much water it's using.

[00:22:25] Peter Mayer: So, those are where it's much easier, so those are the kind of things where it's much easier to get the water signals, that's why the codes and standards have been sold. So important. Um, and so now it's just a question of getting all of, it takes a long time to get all the old fixtures and appliances turned over.

[00:22:39] Peter Mayer: And so that everyone has efficient stuff. But once that happens and you should have a pretty efficient population, new development, you know, as new buildings are built because of the rules, they'll be built efficient to begin with a lot of the work that we've had to do. And throughout my career in water conservation is going back into old buildings.

[00:22:58] Peter Mayer: Putting new, you know, new [00:23:00] fixtures in them because the old ones are so water inefficient. I mean, you reach a point where, you know, you sort of squeeze the lemon and then you have to wonder, can we really grow? I don't believe that we can continue to have our population just go expansive through expansive growth.

[00:23:16] Peter Mayer: I think we need to really have take a hard look at the big picture for the globe and what the planet is capable

[00:23:23] Rajeev: of sustaining. So that leads me to my next question. For fossil fuels, Peter, we have an alternative now, which is like electric vehicles instead of fossil fuel driven vehicles. But what's the alternative to fresh water?

[00:23:39] Rajeev: There's no

[00:23:40] Peter Mayer: alternative for water. The closest thing would be desalinization, where you basically turn electricity and salt water into drinking water. And so if you live on the coast, and, and let's just say that we can't, we get off of fossil fuels and we find, you know, we're able to use solar or other.

[00:23:57] Peter Mayer: sources, renewable sources, so that, you know, [00:24:00] generating electricity is not a problem. Then desalinization would actually probably make a lot more sense. Today, if we're just going to burn more fossil fuels to desalinate water, it's just insanity. We're just making everything worse and worse. So, so, the interesting thing, you know, because it's one of those ones where, you know, a technological breakthrough could change everything.

[00:24:23] Peter Mayer: And if there is, if we could find a low energy form of desalinization, you know, that would make a big difference for a lot of places in the world. But as it is right now, you have to pump, you know, the water back and forth through these membranes. It's just, it's very energy intensive. They site the plants right next to a power plant, usually, because they're planning on using, you know, all the electricity that they can generate.

[00:24:47] Rajeev: Yeah, it sounds very counterproductive

[00:24:50] Peter Mayer: to me. Well, it's a bit like the plans to, oh, we're going to send a, put a pipeline to that gigantic river over there, the Mississippi river, whatever river [00:25:00] is a thousand miles away and bring in the water to the, that's like, we got to pump that water all that way.

[00:25:04] Peter Mayer: There's all of that associated energy, not to mention all of the maintenance and stuff. It's just, it's why not just move the people over by that river? Right.

[00:25:14] Rajeev: Right. And just. Closing thoughts on what do we need to do as, as individuals in order to conserve our footprint? Yes,

[00:25:22] Peter Mayer: that's a, that's a really good question.

[00:25:24] Peter Mayer: So as I think we all have a responsibility in our own community to, to use water efficiently. And that responsibility varies depending on where we live. But if you live in a water scarce area, then you have a much greater responsibility. And when, so that can start by just making sure you don't have leaks.

[00:25:41] Peter Mayer: Leaks are a big problem. The research that I've done on residential water use show that leaks are typically about 10 percent of indoor usage. They happen infrequently. It's the kind of thing that's like, not everybody has a bad leak, but a few people have these real big ones. I'm hopeful that technology will help us and give us [00:26:00] alerts and ways of finding leaks, but as individuals, that would be, I think, the easiest thing everybody could do to just to pay more attention.

[00:26:07] Peter Mayer: When you have an old toilet and you see water running into it or something. It's probably leaking hundreds of gallons a day, and that adds up when you multiply it by all the households in the community. So that's the first thing. Then there's the outdoor water use. If you have, if you use water outdoors, that's where you really gotta think.

[00:26:25] Peter Mayer: That's water, that's your use, that's Really discretionary. I mean, if so, if it's like a wet year, if you live in a climate where, you know, we have big variations like where I do some years, it's perfectly fine. We have plenty of water and it makes a lot of sense that we can water the yard. We can have gardens.

[00:26:42] Peter Mayer: Not all years, though, I think, is that going to be possible in the future. I think we have to accept the fact that outdoor use may be curtailed in some years. And that's really where I see climate change. It's happened in the past. During droughts, I think it's just going to become more and more [00:27:00] frequent.

[00:27:00] Peter Mayer: So, one of the things I've been working on is to help Figure out how utilities can manage those curtailment periods in a way that's more equitable. And so that, that how the people are able to manage their usage in a way that, that, that makes more sense. So instead of telling them, maybe you can only water three days a week, you tell them you have 5, 000 gallons that you can use.

[00:27:19] Peter Mayer: And here's a measurement, here's, you know, how you can tell how much water you're using, then you can choose to use the water however you want. So anyway, those are kind of the things, but it's very important. Water use, ultimately all, we all use water and it all comes down to us at the end. And collective action is what's really accomplished so much so far in water conservation.

[00:27:41] Peter Mayer: We really have done a remarkable job reducing per capita use worldwide without making huge sacrifices. So we gotta, we gotta, we have more work to do, but we have made some

[00:27:50] Rajeev: progress. That was a fascinating conversation, Peter. Thanks for sharing your expertise and your time.

[00:27:57] Peter Mayer: My pleasure, Rajiv. You know, it's, it's [00:28:00] great talking with you and happy to do it again sometime.

[00:28:02] Outro: So that's the end of episode number two, my friends. I hope you enjoyed it. I definitely did bringing it to you. You can send us your feedback and questions by clicking on the voice message link on our website, anchor. fm forward slash politicsetc. That is anchor. fm forward slash politicsetc. Till the next episode, peace out.

The Manas Incident: 

Introducing a brand new podcast featuring Rajeev & DJ. 

DJ (Dhananjay Katju) is a Political Ecologist from Houston, Texas, will help breakdown complex issues that affect our times and Rajeev is the curious layman picking DJ's brains.

In this opening episode, they discuss their brush with insurgency in the forests of Assam and the complicated history behind it.