Episode 2 – Gerardo Celis
Dr. Gerardo Celis, a plant ecologist, joins Eric to share his research and consequent predictions on permafrost thaw in the Arctic, its effect on global warming, and why designers are amazing and needed collaborators to help better tell engaging stories that detail the day in the life of climate scientists and visualize the data from their work.
Listen to this episode on: Spotify, Apple, Google and other places you get your podcastsAbout our guest
Gerardo Celis is an ecologist with a broad interest in terrestrial ecosystem processes, in particular how anthropogenic impacts influence these processes. He is currently working on understanding the impacts of rising Arctic temperatures on the C balance of Arctic ecosystems. He has also studied the role of exotic invasive species in the trajectory of ecosystem recovery after disturbances and identifying management methods to enhance and/or speed up ecosystem recovery.
On the web
www.gerardocelis.com
www.researchgate.net
Music in this episode
The musical guest is Joseph Shipp performing "Where are You".
Theme music by Casual Motive
Climate Design Assignments
At the end of each episode, we ask our guests what their ideal climate design project would be. They have four weeks with a class full of design students. We translated their response into a project brief that you can use for your class.
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Eric: [00:01:02] Welcome to Climify I'm Eric Benson, and I'll be your host this season as we talk to climate experts from all over the world. To help us design educators fight the climate crisis in our classrooms. And yes, I'm also a design educator. I've been teaching for 15 years here at the University of Illinois.
But even if you're not a design educator, listening to this show, there’s so much useful information jam packed in each. That you too can learn how to do your part to help reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.
In this second episode, I'm talking to climate scientists. Gerardo Celis. I met hereto through a colleague of mine and was instantly interested in his research in the Arctic circle. Gerardo is originally from Costa Rica. With a PhD in interdisciplinary ecology from the university of Florida in Gainesville, where he lives and teaches.
His research currently is focused on understanding the impacts of rising Arctic temperatures. And the C balance of the Arctic ecosystems will learn about what all that means in this episode. You can find out more about gerardocelis.com.
Gerardo it's, it’s wonderful to meet you. We're excited that you're here on Climify. So, to begin, let's start by just getting the basics who you are and what you do, and where are you?
Gerardo: [00:02:48] thank you for having me here. I'm really delighted to be here and kind of share, and I guess my 5 cents to the story and my name is Gerardo and I currently live here in Florida, the sunshine state, but I'm originally from Costa Rica.
I'm born and raised in Costa Rica. And then about 2004, I decided to kind of continue my studies and do my graduate studies here in the us right here at University of Florida and my research area has been plant ecology. I'm a plant ecologist and I've conducted research from the tropics all the way up to the Arctic and some of the topics that I've been kind of working on, have been looking at ecosystem restoration.
So, looking at degraded ecosystems, what would be the best way to kind of bring them back to, to a kind of functional form. I've also been interested in looking at the introduction of non-native species into ecosystems. So, looking at plant invasions, and then more recently I've been kind of up in the Arctic was looking at and looking at the ecosystem up there in the Tundra and trying to figure out how climate change is going to impact the Tundra in the Arctic.
And so, we're looking at carbon dynamics. So, the big question is, is the Tundra going to be a net sink or source of carbon? Kind of moving forward in these future scenarios of climate change. And then I guess more recently now I've kind of switched gears from being mostly a researcher to I'm now more of a lecturer.
So, I am a hundred percent teaching. Yes. A hundred percent teaching in agronomy. So, they were looking for an Agroecologist. And so, kind of my background in plant ecology kind of fit in that, but as I moved more into kind of an applied science, then kind of the research I've been doing before. And so, I'm in the agronomy department here at the University of Florida, which I started in December of 2019.
Eric: [00:05:18] So couple years ago.
Gerardo: [00:05:19] Yeah.
Eric: [00:05:21] What was it like? Being in the Arctic, since you're from Florida and Costa Rica, what's the temperature like?
Gerardo: [00:05:28] So yeah, no, it was, first, I, I, I go only in the summer, so I definitely wasn't there for those really frigid months, but it, it definitely took some time getting used to, I didn't have obviously.
The wear and kind of equipment and stuff too, to live in that kind of environment. But we had an experiment there where we were warming the Tundra with some snow fences. And it's kind of counter-intuitive that you would accumulate snow. Kind of warm the Tundra, but it actually works as an insulator for, and those really frigid temperatures in the air.
And so, our idea was to use snow, to kind of warm it. And get the soil temperature to increase. We're able to increase it about a degree Celsius and then kind of see how much, what, what, what would be the dynamics if that soil was too warm and, and the Tundra is, uh, they have a lot of permafrost, which is technically, it's a solid.
Remains frozen for at least two years. And, and so the question is, once you start warming it, what's going to happen with that soil and the carbon that's in that stuff,
Eric: [00:06:47] what's going to happen yet based on all your experiments.
Gerardo: [00:06:50] So sadly enough, we've eh, our experiment has been running for about 16 years and we've been measuring the carbon kind of bets being admitted and up.
And in that whole period and the trend right now is that it's emitting carbon. So, it's going to, yeah, it's not good because it's all that organic matter that's in the soil is being decomposed and that's outpacing the amount of carbon that's being up taken by the plants that are currently there. And so…
That's one of the big kind of questions is if we're in this trajectory, it's always, it's going to be kind of a positive feedback where it's going to look at carbon. That's being released in warm up the, uh, the climate as well, because it's releasing
Eric: [00:07:42] a feedback loop. So, it's constantly…
Gerardo: [00:07:48] you're increasing the carbon.
Right? Oh, uh, climate change, which is the main gas is CO2 or carbon dioxide.
Eric: [00:07:56] So you're, you're a diagnosing a lot of problems up there in the Arctic. You also locating solutions there as well, or
Gerardo: [00:08:05] so, unfortunately not it's something that I get a lot. I'm kind of just a bearer of bad news. Yes. And, but I think, yeah, the definitely where we're collecting a lot of data, it's, it's a lot of unknowns there.
There's kind of two big theories in the Arctic is that they call it the Arctic greening or the Arctic brown. So, we don't know. if over time, it's going to switch just because the vegetation is going to change and then it will be able to capture carbon. But right now, from what we've been experiencing, instead, it is changing another kind of important feature.
There is that a lot of this soil has ice in the soil. And as that ice actually melts, you get a lot of slumping of this. And that creates another big dynamic of moisture and things. So, we're trying to figure that out as well. And methane then comes into a picture that can be in an important gas as well.
Eric: [00:09:11] Yeah. And, and maybe we can educate some of our listeners. Methane is, uh, tell us about methane as a, as a greenhouse gas.
Gerardo: [00:09:21] So methane is, also, it's about 43 times and higher capacity of retaining heat than carbon dioxide, but just by the mere volume of what's in the atmosphere and how much it's being exposed is a carbon dioxide tends to be the one we talk about the most,
Eric: [00:09:42] right
Gerardo: [00:09:43] but methane like, carbon dioxide are these gases that help capture the heat. That's aerated from the, from the Earth’s surface, then it gets captured and then kind of a reality back to the soil and to the earth. And so, but, but methane… Normally when, when microbes are decomposing organic matter, they're either, if there's a lot of oxygen, they tend to then produce CO2.
But if there's lacking oxygen though, the way they kind of decomposers is the by-product the product and that they kind of produces methane. So, this math thing goes up into the atmosphere and it's doing this. Warming effect that the main difference is that the residents' time, how long it can be in the atmosphere without it, then decomposing is much shorter than CO2.
So, it won't remain the lifespan of, of my thing in the atmosphere isn't as long.
Eric: [00:10:45] So there's a silver lining potentially.
Gerardo: [00:10:49] Yeah. And so, so depending. Yeah. And so that's where you hear, like cows become a big issue because they need a lot of methane. Yeah. Rice patties are also, so when you think of soils that are inundated, they tend to produce a lot of methane because they lack the oxygen.
Eric: [00:11:08] We usually do get a lot of work with climate and. Most people that I talk with that are, are into some sort of environmental justice work or social justice work, have some sort of backstory or some like big epiphany that happened to them. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got interested in, in what you do as, as a scientist?
Gerardo: [00:11:33] Sure. Yeah, my mine wasn't really an epiphany, but more of kind of a gradual interest in moving through my career. But I would say probably my father was my main kind of mentor that the person that initiated this, because he's a, he's an economist of natural resources.
Eric: [00:11:55] Interesting.
Gerardo: [00:11:55] So he does kind of evaluations of supply and demand of natural resources and trying to figure out how we can have like a sustainable system where our, where we're using our resources in a convenient way.
So, I kind of had that background and in exposure as I at a very young age, I didn't want to go into kind of the mathematical and economist route. So, I've been, I started exploring a little bit more and I found that biology kind of like biological sciences was the area that, that really influenced or that I, that I thought would be a good fit with what I wanted to study.
Eric: [00:12:40] Was that in, was that in like, when you were really young or in college?
Gerardo: [00:12:45] So that was when, when I was really young, I really wanted to kind of understand these. Big crisis is we're having right. Cause we would, you would see all the time that we had all these different crises environmental crisis. I think the ozone layer was really popular back then and the nineties and talking about the ozone.
And so, I just wanted to see how I can contribute to fixing some of these problems. And so that was kind of really young. Eh, my, I lived in a. When I was around five or six, I lived with my father, and he got a job in a research station in Costa Rica called CATIE. It's an agronomic tropical research station in higher education.
And so, they had research plots all over the place and I would spend all day up there and just looking at the different experiments they have. coffee, you name it. They had all these different experiments. I didn't understand anything of what they're doing. It's really interesting. They had a I think they had one of the largest coffee collections of germ plasm in the world. And so, they have all these different coffees from different parts of the world, and they have bananas. They had a collection of bananas. And I remember there was a banana that had seeds in its things like papaya seeds, and I didn't know why a banana would have seeds in them.
And then now kind of after learning genetics and understanding, we, we, we have kind of modified those bananas to let they don't produce the seeds they're there, but they're just like little speckles.
Eric: [00:14:27] So they're genetically modified most bananas.
Gerardo: [00:14:29] So they’re, eh, bananas than, actual banana. Two sets of chromosomes like humans, right.
We have 48 pairs of 46 pairs of chromosomes. And so, what happens is there is um, the bananas crossed with, uh, a kind of a mutant that has an extra chromosome and or is missing a chromosome. So, then they have three sets of chromosomes and in that. Kind of mutation or that extra chromosome and doesn't allow it to, to become reproductive, but it still produces the banana.
And this is, uh, a technique they use a lot in, in kind of adding. Chromosome sets, eh, eh, to either increase fruit size, increase the leaf. And so, this is something normal. It's not that they're modifying the genetics. It's just that they're adding more pairs of chromosomes. And so, so the bananas, what they call the triploid, it has three sets of, uh, of those chromosomes.
Eric: [00:15:40] I knew nothing about banana genetics until right now.
Gerardo: [00:15:42] Yeah. So yeah, the banana is, is it in theory should have seeds and so that, because it's, uh, it has no seeds, it can't reproduce and through seeds. And so, there's a lot of issues that have come up through. And kind of other diseases that they because it literally, they use, they clone each banana and it's almost the same individual that you're just reproducing and it's not crossing with anything because it just can't cause it's not producing it.
Eric: [00:16:14] And so your father was working with both coffee and bananas. So, his fields are his plots.
Gerardo: [00:16:21] So yeah, who's in charge of kind of the whole research area. And, and so they've been working with cacao. They had a lot of different kind of research areas, but yeah, I was exposed to that. I kind of like the biological side of things.
I wasn't sure if I'm wanting to work with animals or plants. And then when I went to kind of my undergrad. It was there where I, I guess it's just having those really good mentors and professors that kind of motivate you. And those were all kind of in the plant science and that's where I kind of just took my path and decided to, to work with educators,
Eric: [00:17:01] helping to guide.
Gerardo: [00:17:03] Yeah, it's just those that motivate you. They kind of click that light bulb and then you just get really motivated. And, and so that's kind of why I went towards the plan, but I really, before the starting year, the university, I wasn't sure from wanting to work with animals or plants.
Eric: [00:17:22] Well, as our audience is mainly educators, they can relate to having to mentor and guide. People along the way. And I know probably as your teacher now, you’re kind of understanding.
Gerardo: [00:17:35] yeah. That we're definitely going to impact somebody along the way.
Eric: [00:17:39] Well, let's take a quick break here for some commercial messages.
Eric: [00:20:07] I'm sure you get our next question a lot, which is about climate change and how everything is connected, what we do in our personal lives and work.
And there are a lot of, a lot of issues we're facing well. Uh, what, what do you feel is the most important. That needs to be done just by like people like us, everyday people to fight or to help solve the climate crisis.
Gerardo: [00:20:31] Sure. I mean, I don't think there is a silver bullet for. For everyone. I think there's really kind of three things that, that come to mind that people should be thinking about.
One is to actually study and try and understand what the problem is. Right? What, what is the actual problem? We hear it a lot, right. Climate change. Okay. What is the cause? What, what, where's it going and just understand the problem. And then I guess the second step is to then think about your own personal reality, right?
What are, what are some of the things that you do that can impact that, that problem that you've kind of learned about? Right. So, the main culprit. You hear it a lot is this carbon dioxide and emissions and the burning of fossil fuels. So that the question is okay, based on your reality and in your everyday life, what are some of the things that probably have a high fossil fuel demand that you can reduce?
Eric: [00:21:36] Like driving?
Gerardo: [00:21:37] Driving could be one. Your diet can be another one. Maybe reducing the amount of red meat, you eat. Another big culprit is air travel. So, I think more than anything, don't, don't think of it that you're going to have to just stop the life that you currently have and not do anything, but I think it's still kind of gradual steps of figuring out audit, audit yourself.
Okay. This is everything that I do, and I'm willing to maybe modify it. A certain aspect of my life to kind of improve it or decide to, instead of buying a new car, I'm going to slap some solar panels on my house or certain something that, that, that, but I mean, and I think. It just takes the effort to understand yourself before you can kind of decide what it is.
Right. And, and, and then I think the next most important thing is to understand that other people have different realities, right. That what could be a solution for yourself might not be a solution for someone else.
Eric: [00:22:44] Great point.
Gerardo: [00:22:44] Yeah, because I mean, what if you're not immediate or in your solution was to reduce, not eat meat, right.
Well then is that person does not have to worry about it. And so, but also, it's the reality of income as well. Like I just talked about. Putting some solar panels on your house, but most people probably don't own a house. And why would they want to put solar panels on their house? So, I think it's also thinking about the reality of that, that other people have different needs in different aspects.
Like maybe driving less, but if you, your job depends on you driving, I mean, you're not going to take it.
Eric: [00:23:22] Yeah, no. Your third point is really important. I'm a father and I have a partner and a daughter, and, you know, they're on the same page for the most part is me, but I think we're at different levels of like investment in things.
Gerardo: [00:23:35] Yeah, but I think it goes back to that point right where that's maybe a lack of knowledge of what those, what the issue is and how it's connected. Because I mean, if you go to the supermarket, right. And you're like, okay, I'm going to go vegetarian then, which of all the vegetables and fruits are you going to eat?
And then the question there is like, do I eat an apple that's coming from Chile versus a local apple. Right. And so. There's a lot of things that, that you can kind of fine tune and get into the details. But I think there are different decisions that you can make and at different levels of complexity, but, but it’s all kind of like a circle it's like going back.
Okay. I'm not doing this. It's probably because you're not aware it's an issue or yeah.
Eric: [00:24:22] Well, speaking of households one of the many reasons we wanted you to come on the podcast, you’re married to a design educator and this, this shows for design educators. And so, you'd bring in a really important, uh, set of overlapping insights to the discussion.
So, I'd like to turn a little bit about, a little bit, a little bit more about how designers. Help do some of the things that you mentioned, as we're designed educators here interviewing you what role do you think we have in helping with the climate crisis?
Gerardo: [00:25:00] I guess based on my personal window into and its graphic design, right?
It's not the whole sweep of design, but yeah, graphic design. I think it’s; it's just coming up with innovative ways to communicate the crisis. Right. I think we as scientists have, uh, kind of a very narrow window of how things get communicated. And, and I think, eh, the, you as design educators have kind of the capacity of dealing with the communication part of this crisis.
But, uh, but I also want one thing that I've noticed from kind of my, my, my wife's kind of window of, of that world is that. Graphic designers have a very kind of intrinsic unique characteristic that I've noticed is that you tend to work. Diverse groups of subjects, right? Like today you might be working with a museum that's working and needs, uh, kind of the communication and, and, and all the graphic design for their, their specific need.
And then tomorrow you're working with a realtor. That's gonna need to kind of promote their business. And then the next day you're working with a chemist. And so, you really have capacity to kind of find information from very diverse sources and then come up with a way to communicate it in an effective way.
And I, and I find that very fascinating and interesting that at least from running around, like we were raised. Narrow tunnel. And we're kind of concentrating in our areas of expertise, but I feel graphic designers have this capacity of being exposed to these very vast levels of, of different and subject matters.
And you're able then to kind of distill all that information and make it in communicated in a very effective way.
But yeah, no, I think that's one of the things and, and so I really think it's kind of the communication.
Eric: [00:27:09] That's, that's good to hear. Wanted to, to kind of build on that question here. You, you, you talked about your kind of slim window with, with your wife in terms of, you know, about design and son education. Um, what do you think in particular we could bring from the world, your world of climate science, into our world of design education, any specific things or general things that you think we can, we can look at?
Gerardo: [00:27:39] Yeah, I think there's, I guess, one big area that I think, and it has to do with data. And, and I think one of the things that we struggle with that, and because academia and kind of like the scientific community wants our data to be presented, did in a very specific manner, which, obviously, it's not made for them assets.
And so, I think data visualization is something that I feel that we could use a lot in, in kind of the expertise of graphic designers and help us visualize our data. And so, my, my previous employer was Northern Arizona university and they had a. Uh, centered there for ecosystems, sciences, and society, and they actually contracted, uh, he was more of an.
Kind of, uh, artist and illustrator that helped us kind of get these really complex and I guess, subject matter and trying in kind of come up with a visual way in which we can explain what the research we were doing. So, I think that's one really important thing. And then I think the other one, in which, again, going back to.
Seeing my, my wife in the process of graphic designers is, is that you're. Documentation of, uh, the whole process of, from the very beginning to the product that you guys have, you guys go through so many iterations, but it's all documented and that's part of the product right. In the end. It's all that. And, and I think from kind of our realm of data, like we come up, we have this figure that we've created.
It has that thought, but there's the story of how you got that thought is kind of lost. We do kind of document, like we went out, we measured this this time, and we did this with this instrument. And so, there's, there's some information, but it's not very conducive to understanding. And I think that's one of the stories that we're missing from.
And kind of explaining the data so that the public is more confident about it because I think that there's not now with all these conspiracy theories and people not understanding how like, oh, how do you know that this, this is the world is really warming? How do you know they're not making up the data?
And so, I think we're missing that process of explaining to the public that this is a process. This is how we measured it. And in a way. Again, it's easy to communicate because if you put scientists to try and explain it, they're just gives you a
Eric: [00:30:30] list of go over your head.
Gerardo: [00:30:34] Yeah. It's just a recipe of instruments and things that were used.
And so, I think that because of the graphic design community is so used to creating these kind of process books and understanding like what that whole irritative process and documenting it. I think we could learn from that or are these get involved in a way that that can help us then document cause even like picking.
Pictures of our experiments were really bad at that. Like,
we, we have this communication we have to give out, do we have any pictures of our experiment? Oh my gosh. Well, we have these. And so, we don't really take, we don't where we're kind of concentrated in producing the science, but not like the process of creating it, which is.
Eric: [00:31:18] So tell the story of the data,
Gerardo: [00:31:20] tell the story of the data.
And I think that's, what's missing from people believing in the data because I mean, the community, the science community understands and believes it. But I think the public is becoming very skeptical, especially now with a lot of the environment that we're having is, is people are, are, are skeptical. Yeah.
Eric: [00:31:40] And so you need a crew of. Photojournalists basically to join you, but the Arctic.
Gerardo: [00:31:48] Yeah.
Eric: [00:31:49] So I'll volunteer. If there's enough room on your grants,
Gerardo: [00:31:52] definitely. We would love to have you,
Eric: [00:31:56] and we've mentioned your, your, wife numerous times, but never her name
Gerardo: [00:31:59] Gaby Hernandez.
Yes. She's a faculty here at the university of Florida as well.
Eric: [00:32:04] a great design educator. I've met her many times.
Gerardo: [00:32:07] Yes.
Eric: [00:32:08] I just didn't think it was fair to keep on saying your wife, your wife, and, uh, let's let's give her name
Gerardo: [00:32:14] or really introduce her.
Eric: [00:32:15] Yes. So, I'm going to put you on the spot here because, um, you might be able to answer this question with the things you just said.
I want you to put yourself in our shoes and your design educator for the next five weeks, and you have to assign a design project. What would that project be? Could be a big idea.
Gerardo: [00:32:39] Yeah,
Eric: [00:32:40] it doesn't have to be constrained by budget, but yeah. What would you think it would be best suited to, to bridge climate science with, with design?
Gerardo: [00:32:51] So I think one of the, and this is something that I believe in and that I think we should probably move more towards is when we, when we contacted. Graphic designers. We tend to contact them after the fact, right after we've done all the research and done everything.
Right. And, and I remember my wife Gaby saying, yeah, you, you just think of us as beautifers. Right. You got all this content and you just, yeah. You're just going to hate it here, make it pretty. And so, I think from, from, I think a project where not even that the whole kind of ideation of, of, or coming up with the research project that we want, where everyone is at the beginning.
Right. And I think there's a lot of things to learn both ways. Right. I think graphic designers are going to then ask the researchers questions that, that research haven't really thought about and vice versa. Like the, I think, probably scientists would be like, well, why did she choose that type? Why are you choosing those colors?
Right? What, what, what, what, what's the whole process, because I think it's there there's so, so I think the project more than a specific project, I think it's just the idea of creating something from the very scratch but including. Graphic designers and the researchers together, but also so that they kind of respect each other.
Right. Because I think sometimes the graphic designers might think as the researcher, as a client, more than a colleague or somebody who's going to work. Okay. Let's work with this together and try and solve the issue. Right. And so, but I think that dynamic requires you partnering with someone who believes that graphic design has a lot to offer, and you must also believe in the science that has something to offer.
Eric: [00:34:52] You’re kind of volunteering yourself for many of the design educators, because you match all those things.
Gerardo: [00:34:59] Yeah. Yeah, no, I, I think so. And I think that's that that's something that we need to do more on, because I think for, for, from, I guess, even from the graphic design perspective, you understand the problem and, and it's, and like I said, it's even the whole data creation and process.
Like if you're in there doing it, I mean, not hiring you as just a photographer, you would go out and collect data. We would work together. And, and I think that's kind of the dynamics that I think are going to be needed kind of moving forward in these really big crises, because it really takes everyone to be emerged in, in submerged, in the issue so that they, the solutions can kind of come forward.
And, and so I think. Yeah, just having these, this that's kind of mine. I mean, and then it doesn't only have to be graphic designers and the researchers you can bring in social science. everyone's welcome. But I think. Creating a, uh, kind of level playing field where everyone respects each other, and everyone has an opinion and can contribute.
Right. And I think that's where, where I think a lot of these solutions and information is going to come out. Get to that level, because if we kind of are all working separately, we can kind of produce some type of solution. But I do believe that the sum of the parts is, is, is, is better than the home. Yeah.
Eric: [00:36:36] Well, you're preaching to the choir here. And designers have been for years saying, give us a seat at the adults table. You know, we want to, we want a chance. To be on a level playing field and be part of the team. Yeah, that is, uh, like you said, like make it pretty, I can pretty
Gerardo: [00:36:57] much make it pretty.
And like I said that I think that graphic designers, because they've been exposed to so many different diverse subject matters, like they probably worked with an environmental lawyer that has been they've done work for them. Sure. So, the whole round. And so, I think what you, what designers can bring to the table, and it's very important, but not just like beautifying, but also that whole thought process.
And, and, and I think even one thing that I've also noticed from graphic designers, they're really good at taking critique. You're used to editing every day, getting critiqued and so when you combine those, there probably be some rough edges. But I think in the end, scientists will, will become better scientists too, right.
It gives me a lot of ideas. I might have to reach out to you.
Eric: Well, we're coming up to the end here and didn't want to take up too much of your time today, but I wanted to ask one last thing. As we kinda wrap up is, you know what, there's a lot of, you know, you, you see it all, like from your peer work, if they're in the Arctic, all their projects, do what gives you hope that we're going to have a better tomorrow based on everything that you're collecting and data.
I think that the hope comes in and kind of these types of interactions. I think once everyone understands the problem in a way that then is starting us to create these different venues in different ways to kind of address the issue. I think we, as humans were able to kind of take us in this trajectory because of our past, but I think our future is, is.
Going to require these types of interactions that we're having right now to kind of solve it. And I think as long as we're moving in that direction, I think it, solutions aren't going to come up and at least become more aware of, of the issue. So, I, I think in the end, that's what gives me hope is that there are people who are interested there.
There are people who are trying to think out of the box and trying to come up with solutions that then can. Kind of shed some light into the issue and hopefully you've come up with solutions. So, so I, I think it's out there. It's just a matter of time that we, we kind of get to it, right? Yeah, definitely.
Eric: [00:39:25] It reminds me of the Gretta Thunberg statement where that the older generations have failed us, but homosapiens haven't failed.
Gerardo: [00:39:34] Exactly. We're still alive.
Eric: [00:39:36] Gerardo, thank you so much for joining our show. And, uh, we look forward to all the work that you're doing up there and, uh, helping us, uh, learn more about climate.
And so, we can come help communicate it to the masses as designers.
Gerardo: [00:39:52] Yeah. No, thank you for having me. It was a pleasure and yeah, hopefully who knows maybe in the future, we'll be working too.
Eric: [00:39:58] I love it. I love it.
Gerardo: [00:40:00] Excellent. Thank you.
Eric: [00:40:02] Thanks for tuning in today to Climify. But don't leave just yet. I've got more goodness for you coming up.
As the pandemic has really affected our friends in the performing arts where they're unable to book shows tour, or sometimes even get into a recording studio. I thought I'd highlight one at the end of each of our episodes.
Since this is a podcast for designers. The musicians featured on each are also designers. Well, I'll turn it over to our first artist to explain who they are and the reasons behind their music.