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On the Andrew Yang podcast.

It's an interesting balance, right? Because I love using the platform of the music to talk about things. I put just as much time and energy into the music side of things as I have into all of this. Cause I care about it so deeply and honestly. At their core, they're not too different from each other. Building a fan base, building that community to go out and actually take action and do something. It's all answering the question, how do you move people? That's the same thing for the climate movement.

It is my pleasure to welcome back to the podcast literal rockstar, PhD in sustainability and economics and now author of the brand new book how to Use the Power of Connection to Engage, taking action and Build a Better world. And I do make an appearance in this book. Adam met. Welcome back, Adam.

Thank you for having me back. I'm so happy to be here.

Now published author, along with your other accolades, I should say too, the founder of sustainability nonprofit Planet Reimagined. That is going gangbusters.

Yeah, it is going insane. We can talk about that. But I am so thankful to everybody who has participated in that.

So well, shoot, man. I mean, like you, you're growing with the need.

Yeah.

But your book. So for those people who are like, wait, literal rock star Adam is the A in ajr. Yes. Which now is like an arena rock band. I can't be awesome.

I'm shocked just as much as you are. So it's been a very, very long journey. We grew up in Chelsea, in Manhattan and our dream was to play Madison Square Garden. And last year we did two sold out nights at Madison Square Garden. So we achieved the dream.

Yeah. Now what? Now it's heal the planet. And also write a book about how to movement build, which I enjoyed a great deal. Thank you. As someone who has tried to do something similar a time or two, so most people, I'm sure, want to hear about your musical career that you're now transferring to activism. When I think of ajr and what was funny too is like some that there is a story in the book about how you crossed over from pop to alternative.

Yeah.

When you did a collab with a guy named Rivers Cuomo, who. I don't know if you know this, but Rivers Cuomo endorsed me during the presidential and then came and played Yang a Palooza.

No way.

In Iowa. So I got to sing say it ain't so.

Ah, what a dream. That's great.

Yeah. So you guys started out literally, I think it was performing on the streets of Manhattan and then you produced your first couple of songs and albums were on the come up. And there are stories in the book about how you guys would be the opening band for band. You'd be like the opening band for bands no one had heard of. Exactly.

That was us. And honestly, our career transitioned so much when Rivers Cuomo jumped on that song. Because playing for a pop audience is great. You reach a lot of people, but they're not necessarily the most passionate people who are going to take that next step, who are going to come out to a show, buy merchandise, engage online. As soon as Rivers came on, the whole alternative radio audience started to engage. And I think about that so much what featuring can do. Because like we literally featured Rivers on a song. How can we be using that tool really effectively in movements? What if we could have the climate movement and the gun safety movement collaborate on something? What if we can have the LGBTQ rights movement with climate collaborating on something? And there are examples where this works really well. But music and the entertainment industry have so many answers that we're not using in order to build better movements.

Yeah, that's what Amplify is about. It's about taking your experience, building an avid fan base for ajr. And I met Mel, who was kind of AJR fan club manager in chief and then became chief listening officer and now is a full time job with you, which I would say is, by the way, probably the dream of any, any number of fans. And she did it really just by jumping in and seeing how she could spread the word about you guys when you were tiny.

Yeah. So she did something really incredible. So she was one of our first fans ever she showed up to a show, didn't know who we were, saw us play the show, became a fan, and then she really took every step to understand who our fans were, who our audience was. And traditionally, I talk about this in the book, traditionally, the model for building a fan base and even building a movement in the literature, in the academic literature, is using this idea of a ladder. A ladder of engagement. Right? People participate in one thing. They hear a song in the supermarket, then they go home and follow you on social media. Then they'll go to a show, then they'll buy merchandise, up and up and up this ladder. This doesn't really work in 2025, and Mel really understood this when she was kind of helping to galvanize the fans. The model that I like to talk about is this hurricane model. So in the beginning, what she did and what she suggested was that we bring our fans in really close to us. So like, if you imagine the spiral of a hurricane, our first fans, we brought really close to us. We gave them early access to music. We gave them meet and greets. We gave them posters that they can then put up around their neighborhood. We gave them activities that they could do with other fans, brought them in close, and then sent them out in the world to become evangelizers for our band. The fact that they took ownership over their secret, which was us, that made them so much more passionate about trying to grow the brand and the band for. For us, that same thing needs to happen with movements. You have these really passionate people, but they get so passionate without really the tools to be able to bring in other people that it ends up being a block. Right? You have these people that are like, oh, no, they're crazy social activist people. Then I don't want to be part of that. You need to bring them close and then give them the tools in order to engage other people. And the idea behind that is essentially building a community. Right? A ladder. One person goes up a ladder at a time. But this idea of a hurricane, when you send people out in the world, it's building this community. That's what movements need.

Yeah. And Mel was very selfless where when someone else kind of got promoted to become the new fan club manager. So she was like, sure, go for it. She, you know, was. Became a student before she ended up working for you guys. One of my favorite stories from that chapter was you guys had a bunch of extra small T shirts that there's like, no, no, no. And then you were just like, hey, Mel, see what you could do with These because, like, they were comically small and sort of useless inventory. And then she figured out that she could turn them into AJR pillowcases.

Yeah.

And I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, that's super fandom. And then the pillowcases then ended up being, like, the repurposed merch that would. Was just wasting away somewhere.

That was the beginning of my sustainability career.

Yeah. So the book is largely about how to transfer lessons from music to movement building. And the movement that you've been catalyzing has been sustainability. And you talk about trying to get folks to follow your sustainability work on TikTok at a certain point in the book, which I could relate to aspects of this, by the way. So you're posting various messages and getting very limited engagement, and then. Then you make a change, and all of a sudden it starts clicking.

Yeah. So it's. It's. I didn't think you were gonna ask this question. I haven't told this story yet outside of the book. So I would be talking directly to the camera, you know, like you do on TikTok, and just explaining the message. But then it was actually Mel who suggested this. She said, you're cooking all the time on the road backstage. I have this little purple hot pot that I just plug into the wall, and I make soups, I make desserts. I actually made sushi in it. Like, I made the rice and rolled in the dressing room backstage on tour. And she goes cook and talk about the thing that you want to talk about. And then the videos started to go crazy. Like, people were actually engaged. When fans came to meet and greets, they started to bring me, like, sustainable utensils. They brought me all of these different things because they were watching the videos for the cooking, and then they stayed for the messaging. So this idea of entertainment meets advocacy meets education is something that we need more of. I've been thinking a lot about this even since the book came out. I was at a conference for the Economist, and it was their sustainability conference. And I got on stage and I gave the keynote at the end, and I basically said, your mistake here is that you're calling it a sustainability conference. Nobody knows what sustainability means. Nobody knows what 1.5 degrees Celsius is. Nobody really knows what climate change is. And so to be able to inject the actual messages, meaning how you get from place to place, what happens when you turn on the light switch, how your food ends up on your plate. These kinds of things that impact real people are the stories we need to be telling. And so basically I told the Economist that you need to change the name of your conference.

And lo and behold, the next year it became the Innovation Conference.

Whatever you like to call it. The Economist.

You know, the experience you had on TikTok I could relate to because, you know, you give an impassioned personal plea, direct a camera, and no one cares.

Yeah, totally.

That if you start doing something relatable and personal, then everyone's like, oh, I feel like I know this person. Because then I, you know, I too use a hot pot. And then they start sidling up to you and be like, what do you want to say about the other thing?

Exactly. Yeah. It's funny because when people are human, other people are much more likely to listen. And there's another whole chapter in the book about that. And we might talk about that later, but I went to go visit Glenn. Becky.

Yeah, sure.

That was.

I was on his podcast a while back.

Yeah, he is. He became a human to me after four hours of me trying to find one thing that we could really agree on and we found something really impactful to agree on. But. But the human piece of it. When you see that other people. This sounds so simple and so ridiculous. When you see that you are the same as everybody else and everyone else is the same as you, that that's when you start to open your ears about ways that you can connect.

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Yeah. So there's actually pushback on both sides.

What kind of, what kind of musician would it be into the earth but.

Continue on the music side? So there are some really great climate advocates on the music. Billie Eilish is great. Even Shawn Mendes, Chris Martin does a lot. Jack Johnson, Dave Matthews, there are a lot of kind of big artists that support climate. But the line between when you're trying to engage your fans around music, what happens if you start talking about a topic that turns away your fans that your fans don't like? So in advocacy in general, Olivia Rodrigo on Her tour had abortion advocacy. I'm sure that turned away some of her fans. So that's where the question starts to be, if they're there for entertainment, where do you weave in these other messages? Where do you weave in advocacy? And we talk about that a lot. But on the other side, when I first started working in policy and climate policy, and this is at the local level, the state level, the federal level, and now I'm working with a bunch of international governments on setting their. Their climate agendas. A lot of the time, until recently, I would walk into the office and be like, oh, my God, you're from ajr. My kid loves you. Can we take a video? Can we take a selfie?

Sure, sure, sure.

Great. Happy to. And then I quickly transition the conversation to whatever policy they're working on. In the last handful of months, it has kind of flipped. So more meetings now. People don't know that I'm in ajr, and they're there for the climate stuff, which, I mean, I'm happy for both the fact that I'm getting more known for the climate stuff.

You'd be like, you do realize I'm a pop star and I'm now going to get on a plane and play to an arena. Yeah, I'm not going to say that.

I'm not going to say that. But, I mean, it's an interesting balance, right? Because I love using the platform of the music to talk about things, but I also don't want to come across as, oh, just another celebrity with a cause that cares about something, because I put just as much time and energy into the music side of things as I have into all of this, because I care about it so deeply. And honestly, at their core, they're not too different from each other. And like you were saying, with collective effervescence, building a fan base, building that community to go out and actually take action and do something. It's all answering the question, how do you move people? What are the tools? Is it emotion? Is it communication? What are all of these strategies? That's the same thing for the climate movement. That's why I wrote this book. But I don't. People say, oh, you need to transition your mind first. You're in one place and then you're in the other. It's honestly the same for me. When I'm thinking about growing our fan base. We just announced we're putting out an EP this summer with a bunch of new songs on it. When I think about, okay, how do we grow the audience for that? How do we get that out there, get people to understand it, share it? It's all the same thing as what I'm doing with Climat.

You know, one thing I enjoyed about the book, it was the humility you talk about. It's like, yeah, I'm, you know, I'm a fine bass player. There was also a story how really you were a talented keyboardist, but then one of your brothers is even better than you. And so I was like, well, I guess it makes sense for you to take that, that role. One thing I enjoyed was like the early days and they come up and talking about the scrappiness and that one of the mechanisms that clicked, which I thought was actually really impactful, was you guys were opening for another act. I think it was Ingrid Michaelson.

Yes.

And then you just started saying at the end of your set being like, hey guys, we're coming back here. And the tickets just went on sale so you could buy tickets to our show right now, Which I gotta say, I've been to a lot of shows and I've never actually seen an opening band bust that out.

Our, our booking agent was really not happy with us. Basically, we had to put 25 tours on sale over the course of a couple of weeks because each night we were putting a different show on sale when we were in that market. But creating that demand and that immediacy for you just saw our set. If you want to see an hour long version of this, we just put it on sale. Is it a tiny venue? Buy your tickets now. Creating that demand in the moment made all of those shows sell out. And that was the first time we had sold out an actual tour. So that, that strategy was something that is replicable. Absolutely. Any artist can do it. I don't, I don't know of any artist that has done it. So if anybody's listening and knows any artist that has done it, please let me know.

But there was something I thought really, really insightful about that because check it out, I go see an artist, there's the opening band that ordinarily I'm pretty indifferent to. Maybe I bear, you know, maybe I don't even see the entire opening band. Yeah, some actors, but then sometimes you're like, oh, this opening hand's pretty good, you know, and then you might think, I'll throw them a follow or whatnot. But what you did was you took them at their peak of intrigue and then you gave them an action item. Exactly. And the fact is, like, I've been to now hundreds of charity events and there are different versions of this where they're like, hey, you want to donate? And we're going to try and install some urgency, some peer pressure. We're going to have some fast talking auctioneer. I'm going to do some things. And it's, it's, you know, again, I've been on both sides of this because I run nonprofits. So I was up front being like, hey, guys, give money. And some of the things you do when you're in front of the, like the crowd is frankly you seated where you're like, you're going to be, you're going to donate, you're going to like, create it. Try to create a little wave. Yes. But then on the receiving end of it, it's true that there's like this moment and I don't know how many of you have been there, can relate to this. You definitely can relate to this in different ways. Context maybe, you know, less like charity ball or whatever, where you're like, am I going to donate? Am I going to do this thing? Like, like you're, you're at this action cusp and then what you do is you shove it in front of them. At that moment, you're like, they're just like, huh, I kind of like this opening band. Am I going to start following them? And then you were just like, we're coming here and you can buy a ticket right now and you can take your phone and buy that ticket.

Yeah, yeah. That was a thing that we pioneered because we wanted to figure out this was. This was actually after we had been on a lot of opening tour, opening act spots, and no one was coming to our headline shows afterwards.

And that must have been really, like, frustrating. I must have been like, come on, I'm frustrated. We're doing the grind, guys. We're like doing what you're supposed to do.

Yeah.

What's funny is I feel like you broke a fourth wall with that move because one of the things you do is the opening band too. You're really deferential.

Yeah.

You're just like, hey, we know you don't give a shit about us, but things. But then you're like, wait a minute. Like, you know, we're taking all this time on the road, like, we gotta give them this. I, I think that I've been in a lot of these environments, including a lot of these charity environments where they're not actually willing to break that fourth wall and go directly and be like, hey, like, there's kind of this set of manners that we're going to adhere to.

Yep.

And then you say, screw that. Like manners.

Yeah.

Like do the thing right now.

Right. So it's funny, I just wrote an op ed for Time about this. Bernie and AOC are getting so many people out, right? They're getting so many people. They're getting huge crowds, they're getting people who are cheering. And then all these people go home. Yeah. And then what?

That's a frustration.

Right. What do you do in the moment? So I'm on the book tour now, and one of the things that I do is I take this idea of collective effervescence that you mentioned before, and everybody in the moment takes an action that's different depending on what city we do. So I have a screen behind me, a QR code pops up. I walk them through in less than three minutes how to put in your zip code. It pops up with your Senate or your member of Congress. We together write a note about a specific local issue. And hundreds of people at the same time all activate and send messages to their members of Congress and their senators about a local issue or a federal issue that's different depending on what city we're in. We take what's going on in that moment, that energy. I play the beginning of Don't Stop Believing that song because that's how I show the audience what collective effervescence is. Everyone knows the intro to that song, everyone knows the lyrics, everyone knows when to come in. That's that group think idea. Everyone goes. And then I say, okay, we're going to take that energy and actually take a concrete action altogether. So there is an advocacy moment. And so we do that at every stop of the book tour.

So I feel like you're the opposite of what people might expect. You just check it out. No, no, just if there's like, hey, Rockstar embraces the environment, people would be like, okay, this person, you know, like, shows up, does a thing or two. And then like, you're the opposite in that you're actually like, I've gone in deeper than a lot of the experts even, you know, you became an expert yourself, spent years doing so, and then you're going deep. It's really very, very impressive to me as someone who's, you know, tried to go in various directions. People should examine what you're doing with Planet Reimagined. How would you describe the work? And one thing I like about it is that you haven't confined yourself to traditional party lines as one example.

Absolutely. So Planet Reimagined, I think of It So basically we bridge the gap between thought and action. So much of thought and scholarship happens in academic spaces and think tanks, which are great, but very rarely is research developed with an eye towards how can we implement it really quickly. The idea behind it is we incubate creative climate ideas the way a tech company would incubate, like using R and D. Right. So we do policy, we do advocacy, we do comms, we work with governments and companies, all of these different kind of stakeholders, in order to build creative solutions. One of the kind of projects that's running the fastest is this idea of colocation. Never before in the US has this been allowed. We figured out a way to cite, to put renewable energy on top of current oil and gas land. So in the US there's about 23 million acres or so of oil and gas land. A lot of it's been disturbed by oil and gas infrastructure. We worked with someone from NASA to figure out how to put solar panels on top of some of the land where relevant, and wind turbines on top of other of the land where relevant we can.

So when I hear this, I'm thinking like oil fields in Oklahoma, Texas, like those sorts of places.

Yeah, we're our first three states are Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. But in all of these places that you mentioned, that's exactly where we can be putting it. It's all federal land and it actually gives these small leaseholders, these small mom and pop oil shops that were actually losing money year over year, literally a new lease on life. They have new revenue. And one of the interesting things is that instead of taking solar and disturbing new land, we can actually use pre disturbed land. We can take advantage of some of the infrastructure that's so hard there. And, and because there's roads, there's buildings.

There'S the energy infrastructure because they were connected to hookups.

Exactly. And then the other thing is we think a lot about community engagement. Right. So one of the things in the estates that I just mentioned in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, royalties from oil and gas fund schools and fund hospitals. So it's one of the reasons why people are very hesitant to move away from this form of energy. But we figured out a way for this new energy to fund schools and hospitals. So we worked on this bill with members of Congress and, and not everything I do will be at the, in the policy space will be with Republicans and Democrats in equal number because I see what happens when you work with just one side or the other and then it ends up flipping and flipping and flipping. So we introduced a Bill last year in the House and this year in the Senate and it is the first energy related bill that has equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats supporting it. So it's there in the Senate now. It's called the Colocation Energy Act. It will open up renewable, it will open up oil and gas land to put solar and wind on top. Top of it.

That's such a win win for everyone because check it out, if I'm like, let's say I'm, you know, Republican in red state that loves its oil and gas and then you come and say, hey, you want to put solar panels on top of it. And then the leaseholder is like, oh, it makes some more money. And then you're like, so you're not trying to take away my oil and gas, you're trying to add another layer.

Yeah.

And so the red state person's like, well sure, I mean, you know, dollars and cents and the rest of it, like I say, yes. And then if you're a Democrat, you quite enjoy the image of solar panels as far as the eye can see or wind turbines.

Yeah.

And so you can get people from both sides on board and the earth doesn't really care how the, like how it got passed.

Right, exactly. And so solar is the cheapest form of energy. There's no kind of negotiation on that. Solar is the cheapest form of energy. As we're building these out and working on the economics of it and the finances of it, a lot of these oil and gas companies will see on their balance sheet that solar is the cheapest form of energy. So as we do this, yes, they can co locate, they can continue producing oil and gas, but that is a finite resource. Resource.

It's going to, it's going to run out.

Eventually going to run out and then they'll still have all of the solar production or wind production.

So smart will eventually end up just, you know, you see it shifting over time.

Exactly.

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So when you wrote amplify, how much of it was. Because this is by the way, this is the way my mind works. So I don't, I mean, so amplify is written so it could be used by anyone who's trying to grow movement. And by the way, one of the insights I loved in it, where you're talking about the magic of merch. Totally agree. The magic of merch. Because it, you know, I do know we, I mean, love the math hats. To this day, by the I still have events and someone, ever someone comes to me with a math hat on, it's like high five or a hugger, one of those things. Because it did all the things you wanted to at once.

Yeah.

It's like a sign of, you know, energy and affection and affiliation. It does raise money because, you know, thing costs a little bit of money, but it also spreads the word because every time someone sees the person with it on, they're like, oh, what's that? It's like, oh, you like math? I mean, you know, whatever, whatever it was, love it. And so that's true for ajr, true for any rock band, but it's also true for Planet Reimagined.

Yeah.

And so one of the things that happens to me, and I'm sure it happens to you because, you know, you're very effective person, you like, write the book and you're like, you know what, I'm not going to hammer you over the head with a particular caller message. Like, I want you to do what excites you. But also, wouldn't it be great if you kind of found out about Planet Reimagined and there wasn't like, you know, I mean, it was sprinkled and you're clearly very passionate. But if someone does want to get involved with Planet Reimagined, how can they best do so?

Yeah. One of the best things that I love about what we do is we offer these fellowship programs for college students, master students.

What?

Yeah. So for anyone who wants to learn all of these skills, these, these fellowships over the summer, you work on all of the different projects that we're working on and you kind of act as support, so you learn about them, but at the same time, you get training sessions on how to do everything from creating videos and doing social media to data visualization to working with journalists, to working with academics. You learn all of the skills in order to go out in the world and work in this space. And right now I teach climate policy at Columbia. I love it, I love teaching. But in the academic world, very rarely do you get all those concrete things to be able to hit the ground running.

Definitely not.

So our fellowship program was meant to bridge that gap the same way we are as an organization, bridge that gap between kind of thought and action.

Wow. So it sounds like a student can apply for Those fellowships.

Yes, they can.

At Planet Reimagine, pretty rigorous.

I think last year we had 1200 applicants for 12 spots, so. So it's pretty rigorous. But someone's gonna get in. Yeah, someone's gonna get in. And, you know, who knows? If we raise more money, maybe we can expand that to 24 slots.

Look at that. So someone could just go to Planet Reimagined and then donate the money, and then they'd be creating a spot.

Exactly. For more students to learn.

Adam, I gotta say, I mean, you're someone who invigorates me to try and do more because, like, you're doing so much. I think after this interview, you're hopping on a. To. To head to another continent to try and do something good for the environment. What do you see as next for yourself? And. And one of the things. One of the reasons I ask is that so, like, you know what was fun reading this book is that so you. They're three brothers, and you naturally gravitated toward the business side of things.

Yeah.

And I'm sure, like, it was really important that one of the three of you decided to do that. And so you're clearly a very, very natural builder. You know, like, you got there and you're like, okay, what's going on? And then how are we gonna build a fan base? How are we gonna make it so that we can tour successfully? And then you start Planet Reimagined, which has grown from, I want to say, six people to 35 people over, like this, which. Which is very, very unusual for, like, a new nonprofit.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, and so you're continually trying to level up. It's one of the things that entrepreneurs like to do. So what is next? A run for office, perhaps? No, I'm not putting that. I would never put that on anyone.

It's funny. I mean, I've been asked a lot about that, and I'm curious if you feel the same way. I feel like I'm having a lot of impact not running for office. And one of the things that we talk about in the book is you basically made the ideas of ranked choice voting and UBI famous. It was associated with you and your. And I mean, in New York City now we have ranked choice voting for our mayoral election. But I think that me, at this point, the fact that I can walk into any Republican office and any Democrat office and actually take a meeting and they'll take me seriously, I can move things forward. That is more valuable than picking a party and running, as, you know, under that Party. So for me, I would say the next thing is Growing Planet Reimagined, but also rethinking what the climate movement looks like in its entirety using a lot of strategies from the book. I do not think we should be calling the climate movement climate. I do not think we should be using the name climate change anymore. I don't think we should be using the name sustainability anymore. Climate change. What does 1.5 degrees mean? What do any of these things actually mean to people? What we mean.

Stop there for just a second. So check it out. And you do talk about this in the book, which I appreciate it a great deal. A lot of folks know that climate change is happening in Israel. It's a major problem, but they're also daunted by the fact that they're like, look, this thing is so enormous and like I could change my personal habits, but does that even really make a difference?

Pretty much no.

And yeah, I mean, you know that because you know, if you're, you're smart at all, you'd be like, hey, my sticking the thing in the recycling container is not going to do this trick. And there, you know, there's, there are a lot of human tendencies to say, okay, because this is like a mammoth intractable problem. I agree it's very, very important. But like, I don't necessarily want to dedicate my like, you know, waking energies to trying to solve a problem that I don't know if I can solve. And so I think all of that now is coded in even some of the terms that you just throw out there. Like if you say climate change, I mean I would just be like, Look, I'm 100% on board. But then all these other caveats come into play and then you know, you're left thinking it's like, okay, are any of my actions going to move the needle? And I think that's a conversation we've been having for quite some time. So just so you know, like I endorse trying to change the terminology or the language of the framing.

Some things are simple. Putting $1,500 per year back in families pockets. Good. Hitting hard working Americans with a $4.5 trillion tax hike. Not good. Unleashing affordable American energy.

Good.

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I think this idea of a new American industrial revolution is a better way of thinking about it.

This is so positive. And by the way, also, that would appeal to Democrats and Republicans, like.

Exactly, exactly. Because that is ripe for investment. Right. How we power things, how we get from place to place, how we grow our food, how we get rid of things, how we build things. All of these things are climate change. But we don't have to talk about it using that framing.

Totally.

Right. It's like a kind of slightly different approach to Ezra Klein's abundance movement.

By the way, I am so, like, jazzed. Where, you know, we called UBI the Freedom Dividend because it tested better with conservatives, of course. And so I'm just like, look, I'm just totally practical. I'm trying to get this problem solved. So I don't really care what you call it. You guys want to call it Freedom Dividend, I'll call it Freedom Dividend.

This was a huge mistake in my mind from the Biden administration changing the name to the Inflation Reduction act in order to get that bill passed. Fine. Right. But when you're talking about it publicly, when you're going out there and trying to celebrate this win, it shouldn't be about, look how many of the production tax credits we got. Nobody cares about that. Nobody knows what a production tax credit is unless you're an energy developer. Right. Call it something that people will actually care about. The Inflation Reduction Act. Sure. That's what it says on the name of the bill in Washington, D.C. it says in the name of the law. Fine. But call it something else that are actually going to get people excited about the thing that just happened. Celebrate that win in a celebratory way.

Yeah, the new Industrial Revolution certainly has a ring to it. By the way, ranked choice voting, in some contexts, instant runoff voting actually travels better. So I'm like, sure.

Well, then you know what it is. Instant runoff. You know exactly what that is more than ranked choice voting.

Yeah. You know, and I'm not. I'm like, I'm like, call it whatever you guys want. Like, you know, as long as we get the job done.

Totally.

And I think that insight alone could really further the. I'm going to even call it the sustainability movement.

The New Industrial Revolution.

Further the New Industrial Revolution. Because. Because in this era, everything is so bifurcated and blue versus red that as soon as you get bogged down in this stuff, you kind of know it's going to get stuck. And it's only by trying to get above or beyond that that you can get real things done, which you have done. I mean, really, kudos to you for actually making progress on some of these really thorny problems and by just being smart about it, you know, like not being precious, you look at it and say, okay, what is it going to take to actually move the ball down the field? Like, let's do that.

This is my biggest pet peeve. It's funny. I gave the commencement speech at the Columbia Climate School graduation.

Wow.

And I said a lot of things, but I said no more conferences, no more convenings unless there is a real actionable goal for it. There is so much getting together to talk about something. Right. Without actually having results that come out of it. And I'm so tired of that. People will offer to pay for me to fly wherever, to go give a talk about something, and to sit on a panel with three other people. I'm sure you know what this is like. I do and very rarely does. Can I curse on this podcast?

Yes, please.

Very rarely does shit actually get done when that happens. And so if you're gonna do that and get people in that room where they're talking about something, there should be a pre roundtable or a post roundtable. That's just you all that are on the panel to actually make a commitment around.

Totally.

Your companies, your businesses, your platforms, whatever it is, should actually have something real and concrete every time you're bringing people together to meet over something.

Dude, if that was the standard, half of these conferences wouldn't exist.

Exactly. Exactly. And that maybe that's good. Maybe we need to say goodbye to some of them.

Yeah.

No one would care. No one would care.

Not to say. You know what I mean? If you're going to try to get people together. But just like Adam saying, have a goal in mind, have something concrete and actionable and then maybe you'll be able to get Adam over there. Me too.

Bring Andrew and I to your conference. We will help design something where it's actually actionable. People in the audience are taking action. We have real commitments. We'll be able to get shit done and we can do it together.

Look at that. Package deal. Adam, really? Congratulations man. Now you can add published author again to this. It's been so much fun following your journey. I knew you back before you got this PhD. I think you're still working on the dissertation or whatnot. If someone wants to keep up with you, your work, your org, how can they best do so?

All of my social accounts are adamajrbrothers, but if you just put Adam Met into Google, you can find me. I'll be the first thing that pops up.

Well, thank God for that. Adamet amplify how to use the power of connection to engage, take action and build a better world. I really enjoyed this book and not just because I make a guest appearance.

He makes a great guest appearance. We talk to a whole bunch of different people who participate in movements in different ways. And Andrew was a very reluctant leader of his movement because he didn't want to be the face of it. He didn't want to be the person who was out there and he just made an amazing front person and his team was the person who got him. Who got him out there. And like I said before, you made UBI and ranked choice voting or instant runoff voting famous and now it's being adopted all over the country. So thank you for that.

Well, you know, from your lips to God's ears, my friend. And thank you for your activism, your leadership and your character. It's really awesome to see.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. This is fantastic.

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