Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Pito. Sormituntuma. Istuvus. Virtusuoja. Kestävyys. Puorellinen. Puoreton. Mukava. Miellyttävä. Vedenpitävä. Lämmin. Hengittävä. Minunkin täytyy hengittää. Sinä asetat vaatimukset. Meiltä löytyy käsine. Tegera. Suoja käsineet työhön kuin työhön.
I'm on the right side of history. I'm atoning for being descended from this oppressive group of people. And so it was all in my psychology a way to be a good person. I gave AOC one of her first interviews. I interviewed Greta Thunberg. And look at her now. I mean, I feel like she's lost the plot. I didn't know how bad Stalin and Mao were. I did not know. I didn't know.
I really thought that we were just the worst country, which is really, it's so sad. I truly was the definition of a useful idiot. It's like I have 10 years to live.
It's kind of brainwashing, isn't it?
Yeah. I think it's brainwashing, and I'll be even more hyperbolic. I say it's a crime against humanity.
Can you win those people over?
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Chapter 2: What led Lucy Biggers to become a climate activist?
So now I'm on the right side of history. I'm atoning for being descended from this oppressive group of people. And so it was all in my psychology a way to be a good person and fit in with the group, which... I felt wasn't gonna accept me if I was just, like, a normal white person who was like, actually, this country is worth defending. Actually, I'm not racist.
Like, I was never gonna say that stuff. Because I would get my head chopped off by the group think. Even if it was never an over threat, right?
How do you know that you would have been attacked if you'd said that?
Because you would just see in the Slack channel what was an appropriate opinion to have. And anything that was slightly moderate or... pushing against this would very much get shouted down by the vocal, most vocal, most extreme groups in the, you know, most vocal employees in the group. And so it wasn't a conscious thing.
You know, it's just a bunch of 20 somethings kind of just figuring out what is okay. And again, this is a very millennial 20 something newsroom in the 20 teens. the virus has left the lap at this point. And I think this ideology is now at the New York Times.
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Chapter 3: How did Lucy's experiences in the media shape her views on climate change?
We know this. It's like the woke stuff that we talk about. But I was just in it. I didn't question it. And it just subverted everything in my worldview, right? Where it's like, I grew up, two-parent household in Connecticut, like, idyllic American life. Like, I have family who, like, fought in the Revolutionary War, Civil War, whatever. I have a lot of, like, national pride.
And all of a sudden, I... Because of this ideology, I was like, I can't have pride in any of that. And I need to just... kind of apologize, stay small and like atone. And like, hopefully they'll all be accepted by the group because like, sorry guys. Like, so it was a very like sad ideology to live by, but I think that my experience is very common in my way of just being a good ally.
I took it out by building up this climate. movement and brand. And again, this is all in retrospect that I'm saying this. At the time, it was all subconscious. And only now, years later, I left that job in 2021. I went to a nonprofit for one year, and that's when I then heard about Barry's podcast. Barry Weiss is my boss now at The Free Press.
And she started The Free Press, and I've been out at The Free Press since 2022. And so that's even been more of a, like, deprogramming, essentially. So, yeah.
The thing that I found really interesting about this movement, because at the time I was teaching primary school, so I could see some of these ideas start to creep into primary school, teaching and teaching about climate and the fact that the world is coming to an end, all this stuff. And I remember reading about it and I stumbled on Greta Thunberg. And she was 15 years old at the time.
And as somebody who also used to teach special needs kids, I found it deeply weird that the head of this movement was a 15-year-old autistic girl. What was your impression when you interviewed her? And did you not find that strange as well? Or was it something that was just accepted?
It was something that was just accepted. In retrospect, I think it's so weird. I think it's such a red flag. But at the time, I think this ideology of the climate movement and the nihilism and the apocalyptic thinking, it has a lot of religious undertones. And so I think Greta was accepted as like this beacon of hope, right? She was a Joan of Arc character.
and this idea that the youth are unspoiled by the sins of this world, so she's a truth-sayer. That's how I saw her, right? I thought she was so brave, and I did not... I would laugh when I would see the conservative critique of her that was like, oh, why do you have a 15-year-old leading your movement? I'd be like, I just don't get it, you know? And now I think that's a very valid critique.
Why does a movement need a teenager to be its leader? We're living in the real world here, and things like our energy system are not something that a 15-year-old who's never paid an energy bill in her life should be talking about. But again, it was so ideological. And so when I met her, which was 2019, May of 2019...
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Chapter 4: What were the turning points in Lucy's perspective on climate activism?
So like we, the central planners, can plan this better. And then also taking away people's property rights in the name of a greater cause. So socialism, we all know, is to get to equality and climate change is to save the planet, but they end up being acted out in very similar ways. You need more bloated bureaucratic government.
You're always going to prevent some, or you're always trying to reach a utopia, right? It's like, in 10 years, it'll be a green utopia. Just, we're gonna tax you a little more. You're gonna give up some of your freedoms, but in 10 years, it's gonna be utopia. So there's a lot of ideological overlap. And I think, again, You can't be understated how un-inoculated the West is from this.
Young people were not educated properly on communism, socialism in America at all. We're taught a lot about World War II and Hitler and stuff like that, but I never even learned about the destructiveness of communism and socialism when I was in school and only have had to educate myself later. And so I think I do see the climate movement as sort of the next... iteration of that same ideology.
It's about control, but in the name of greater good.
Because, so just one final thing, because then the climate movement entered this really weird phase where then it started to equate its struggle with Palestine.
No, I know it's not. And I was like, what? Well, while I was still in it in the 2019s, too, and, like, the BLM stuff was coming in 2020, then it was all about, like, everything is social justice, and it's all about the global North has been oppressing the global South and Western imperialism. And it really, like, the... I'm not trying to think of the word.
It's, like, the... They exposed themselves for what they truly were, right? Like... The mask came off, is what I was trying to say, is that the mask really came off, I think, and you started to realize around 2020, at least for me, I'm like, wait a minute, I thought we were like trying to recycle here and like maybe put in a few solar panels.
And now I'm having to say like down with the West and like the global North is oppressing everyone in the global South, very black and white thinking. And I think as the years went on, like the overlaps between those ideologies like got more and more and more. Then maybe when I entered it again in the 2015, 2016, I truly was the definition of a useful idiot. I was just ignorant.
I was trying to do good. I really just was a well-meaning young person who wanted to be on the right side of history, wanted to have my impact. I felt like there was an injustice. In this case, evil fossil fuels were taking advantage of a Native American tribe, and it was a very black and white story for me. And then as the movement progressed,
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