that we're gonna talk about that we're gonna talk about policy and how important it is within politics to work together to work for the blue economy and to work for policies to work for the blue economy and to work for policies that will help you adapt to climate change and ocean related conservation issues we're gonna be talking to Janelle Kalman who used to be the mayor of Sausalito City and sits on the Sausalito City Council in California. She's also gonna be running for the lieutenant governor of California in 2026. We talk a lot about her work, her work as an athlete, and how her work as an athlete helped her connect to the ocean. We're gonna talk all about that. On today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast, let's start the show. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. This is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. And today we're gonna be talking about taking action through government and through policy. And I know you're probably wondering like, what are we talking about here? Federal policy. We all know the federal policies. But no, we've been really focusing on the last number of episodes on local issues and local policy. And I'm very delighted to have Janelle Kalman, who used to be the mayor of Sausalito City and sits on the council of Sausalito City. And, you know, she talks about policies. She talks about how, you know, she helped implement a blue economy task force. How she helps secure $1 million to adapt to sea level rise. And we talk a lot about planning for climate change adaptation. And I think what happens is no matter where the politics sit, no matter how people feel about climate change, things have to happen at a local level. Policies have to be made, money has to be secured, and adaptations have to be made at a local level in order for people just to kind of just enjoy life and just sit there and have a government that takes care of them when they need it the most, especially in these times where we see natural disasters climbing and increasing at a rapid rate. So here, you know, where they are in California, California hits droughts, wildfires, you know, there's potential sea level rise problems. There's tsunami problems. We're seeing more of these natural events happen. Natural disasters happen. And, you know, that's obviously something that they have to deal with. And they have to deal with at a government level. So being able to speak to Janelle was absolute pleasure. She brought a lot of energy. She's an ultra athlete, meaning she runs a ton of marathons, biking, everything like that helped her get connected and fell in love with the California coastline up there in Northern California. She's originally from the East Coast. She talks about, you know, why she stayed in California when she did, and her life there and what she's been able to accomplish through that. But the real thing that I love is how she approaches climate change by not using the words climate change. Climate change can be a very divisive topic. Once you write, once you put that in, you know, like, if I, you know, I'm talking about climate change now, I'm probably going to get some people commenting on this video. I'm probably going to get people commenting on the podcast saying climate change doesn't exist. This is blah, blah, blah. You know, there's a study that was never published or anything like that that talks about EVs and all that kind of stuff. I get it all the time. As soon as you mention climate change, as soon as you mention electric vehicles or any kind of solution or part of a solution that helps reduce climate change, you know, you get the trolls, you get the haters that come at her. But, you know, Janelle has a different way of approaching it. It's like, hey, we want to make sure that we can avoid droughts. We want to make sure that we can avoid flights and we want to make sure that we're prepared for it. And I think that's a right, the right approach. It's an interesting approach. Something that is more collaborative than divisive. And I think that's something that people can handle. You know, getting away from the politics, even when you're in politics, the politics of words and terms is really, really important. So I love that aspect of her. But I want you to hear from her yourself. So here is the interview with the former mayor of South Seattle County and the current city councilor and the person who's running for lieutenant governor of California in 2026 because they look after ocean items. They look after the environment. I'm looking forward to you to hearing this interview. Here's the interview with Janelle Kalman. Enjoy, and I will talk to you after. Hey Janelle, welcome to the How to Project the Ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about climate change and the oceans? I am so ready. You're such a great voice. Thank you. I've been in a warm-up. Yeah, I got to get a good sense of it. Like, you turned it on. It's awesome. There's something when I press that record button. I just get this radio voice or something. I'm working on my radio voice. I'm a little more jealous. I will tell you that I had a part-time job in college my senior year. I announced for the women's softball team. Awesome. And I always wanted to have, like, this announcer voice and I just, I don't think I nailed it. So you're doing great already. It's not really fantastic. I love, are you going to watch the Olympics now that, like, the softball team do the announcing as you go along through the broadcast? Oh, that's a phenomenal expert. But I am watching Olympics every night. I mean, look, I'm a lifelong athlete. Yeah. And just for me, it's like everything I learned about management and career and goal setting is all about being an athlete. Oh, 100%. Yeah, there's a lot that goes into that. A lot of people learn it through training for that. I love it. We're going to get into a lot of stuff today. We're going to talk about climate change. We're going to talk about oceans. We're going to talk about your political roles that you've played over your time in environmental law. We're going to get into a bunch of things. And I think this is great because, you know, you and I are just meeting right now. But I'm so glad that your team reached out because I feel like we don't get to talk a lot about this kind of stuff on the podcast because I never have someone with your background on. And this is going to be nice. It's going to be refreshing to be able to talk about politics and climate and hopefully a positive light, which will be great. So, yes, absolutely. We can't wait. Yeah. All right. Perfect. So before we get into that, you know, why don't you just let people know who you are and what you do? Sure. Well, I am coming to you from the beautiful American city of the United States of South Dakota, California. We are the first community right across the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. We are a waterfront community. We sit on the bayfront, not on the coast. And I'm actually coming to you from my living room and I'm looking down on the bay right now. I grew up on the East Coast in Pennsylvania and I came out to California for law school. And I wonder about his environmental law and I looked around and I was like, "This is it. This is exactly where I need to be." So I went to law school at Stanford, but then I clerked down in San Diego and ended up in Sausoleto. Primarily because I was a rower at the time and there was a courthouse in one direction and a law firm job in the other. And this was right in the middle and I have been in love with Sausoleto ever since. And so I'm an environmental lawyer, turned entrepreneur, turned local elected official. I ran for office in 2020 and got elected and I served as a mayor of Sausoleto in 2022. And I also run a global NGO called the Center for Sea Rise Solutions. And we focus on developing strategies for decision makers to take action around coastal adaptation, climate resilience and ocean health, which is what brought us here today. Absolutely. And then, of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention that I'm running to be the next lieutenant governor of the state of California because of all the overlap on education and climate and oceans and the economy. So I'm sure we'll get into it. Absolutely. We definitely are going to get into all of this. I'm excited. I'm very, very excited. But I have to ask, you know, when you started settling to Sausoleto, what was it? Like, is it the bay front? Is it the water? Is it the forest that surrounds you? Like, what is it about the nature of Sausoleto in the area that you love the most? I love this question because this is just such a beautiful iconic spot. On one side, we have Richardson Bay and the other, we have the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. I was a cyclist for a long time. Now I'm an ultra runner. And for me, just to pop out of my front door and, you know, within five, ten minutes, I'm on a trail. I'm on a single track. I'm on a fire road. I can see the ocean. It just feels your heart, right? There's all those studies that talk about how nature can calm you, makes you feel a real sense of place. And we're surrounded. Water on one side and natural beauty and hillsides on the other. Absolutely, yeah. I'm so happy that you mentioned that too because we talk a lot about Wallace J. Nichols, who unfortunately recently passed, you know, rest in peace for him. But he started this sort of blue mine movement where, you know, we started and he lived in that area. His family still lives near that area. And it was all about the forests and the bays and the coastlines and looking at the blue water and the reasons why we love blue and how it's calming. And it's just, it's so great too, especially when you can do such athletic things around and on the water. You know, and I think that that really helps. And it probably helps you to sort of meditate as you're as you're doing these ultra runners and all the races and stuff like that and cycling and it probably helps quite a bit. Yeah, people, you know, it's not uncommon here in the Bay area for people to take a moment to meditate, set their intentions kind of thing. And I always tell people, I meditate on the trails. You know, we think about the two hours when you're out there today and like, nothing. It's awesome. Through your brain and you're just in nature and you feel like you're a part of it. It's really phenomenal. You know, we're really close to your woods. And a lot of those coastal redwoods. And so we'll just get all of this different, like enormously incredible iconic beauty. I love it. I love it. It probably drives you to do what you do as well, which is, which is really helpful. And let's start to get into that. Now, you obviously, you have a lot of energy to do all these different things. Was that always as like, as a kid, did you always have this type of drive and this type of motivation to do and accomplish so much? Yeah, I think I did. No one's actually ever asked me that question, but they would get to it through sports. So I'm a lifelong team sport athlete. I played four different sports in high school. I played the cross and field hockey in college, played a bunch of stuff after. And so, I mean, I was always outside. I was always outside of playing and smiling and laughing and finding, you know, paths forward with other people. And my homework is who I am because I'm playing sports in a very young age. And I think sort of the power of that collective action really impressed itself on me. You know, I mentioned earlier, I grew up in northeastern Pennsylvania. I was an old coal mining town and, you know, it wasn't without its sort of historic issues. I watched my mom develop asthma throughout the cold dust that was still in the air. People still talked about a famous flood from 1972 when the river broke the levees. You know, there was always some natural component to growing up in this area. And of course, northeastern Pennsylvania is a beautiful area, a lot of trees, a lot of hillsides. So it was just a part of who I was and something that always drove me to do more within the context of team sports. Right on, I love that. Now, you know, becoming an environmental lawyer, that is, it seems like, especially these days, it's a profession that many lawyers are seeking out. Or more and more lawyers are seeking out than what we'd expect or what we really found out. Now, is that just me just hearing about it more? Or was there like a gap or is there been an increase in the amount of environmental lawyers that we've seen? I think that talking about the environment and climate change has become much more mainstream. If you think about the National Environmental Protection Act or NEPA, that didn't come about until the 70s. It wasn't for recent years where we saw more and more regulation plus more authority for in the US entities like the Environmental Protection Agency or NOAA, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, which I'm sure you know well. And so I think it's really coming to the public consciousness more as we begin to understand our human impact on the environment, both terrestrial and, of course, oceans. That's right. Now, for you becoming an environmental lawyer, was it as you started to look at, you know, the coal mining town that you lived in? Just as you mentioned, you know, your mother getting asthma and people around you potentially getting sick, you know, maybe because of coal mine, maybe not, but likely so, just because of the air quality there. Did that sort of lead you into environmental law or what, if not, what did lead you there? I think it was probably a combination of those experiences. I remember, you know, field hockey is a false sport, but you would have preseason in August and August eventually could be really hot. And our practice field and preseason was right by a paint factory. And you'd be running the two mile test and be like, man, I feel dizzy. Like, what is that? And so it's just that this awareness, I think, and then when I went into college, I found myself just fascinated with the history of the American West. And that led to what happened to resource allocation, what happened to the way we treated our natural environment, our indigenous peoples, right, what happened to our ethics or morality in our direction and became more and more interested. And I began to do a lot of reading. I was a big fan of Edward Abbey growing up, Rachel Carson, you know, Henry Davis Thoreau. I'm looking at my bookshelf right now on John with me, a lot of Barbara Kingsolver, you know, writers who really made you feel a connection to the natural environment. And actually when I graduated from college, I rode my bike from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco, California to raise money. Yeah, I was raising money for Habitat for Humanity, but Andrew, I'm telling you, I had never ridden my bike more than eight miles. But I was like, yeah, I could do this. I'm an athlete. I was so sore. But it was my first time out west. I remember when we went through Moab and Arches in the desert southwest and then we came in over to Diego past into Yosemite. I mean, my mind blown. And so my time as graduate school was like, yes, I want to focus on climate. I want to focus on environmental issues. That's amazing. So can you talk to me about some of the work that you've worked on, you know, just after graduating when you became an environmental lawyer, like after you graduated with that designation and passed the bar and so forth? Yeah, well, I'm actually going to take one little step back. So I have a master's in environmental management. So after college, I went to Oxford, the real honor and opportunity. And I got a master's in environmental management and I came back to the United States and I moved to Washington, D.C. and I started working on a project at the Smithsonian on the wall, the National Mall. And I was working at a project called the Environmental Change and Security Project. And I mentioned this because back then, it was 1996, this idea of linking whether it was climate or agriculture or droughts to any type of national security was really a new concept. Now we see climate migration in many different parts of the world. Unfortunately, we see famine and we see drought. And so I had a real look at, wow, how these issues could influence policy across borders. Then when I finally came out to California to go to law school, my first couple of jobs were in law firms doing some mostly land use and that type of work. But then ultimately, I went to work for the federal government and then to a utility. And I did a lot of nature species work and a lot of water related work. So I got in very early on renewable energy and focused on some of the trade offs to the impacts to endangered species when we look to build transmission lines or develop new types of renewable energy plans. I love that. I love that. Now, it's really interesting to be able to speak to you as an environmental lawyer and to be able to see the changes that, especially over the last 20, 30 years that we've seen going up and down, depending on which state you're looking at, which federal government in power and so forth. We are starting to see more and more changes to our environment, especially out there in California on the West Coast. We're seeing more forest fires. We're seeing wildfires people losing their homes. It's affecting people now. I think before, you know, 20, 30 years ago, people were like, well, you know, it's climate change. It's either here or it's not here. There was a lot of denial. Now it's affecting people's livelihoods. It's affecting the way our lifestyles. We just had, you know, in Canada and Alberta, by heart goes out to them in Jasper, the whole town was devastated, you know. And a lot of that, you lose the memories, you lose your photo. It's just devastating. How, like, from a point of environmental lawyer, you know, what's the action here? What do we have to do at this point in time as individuals, you know, the people listening to this podcast, the audience, like, what can we do to really affect change, you know, whether it be the law or whether it be through the government for law? I think the biggest thing we can do is stop making climate a political issue. It is so polarizing to use words like climate change or the changing climate to use words like sustainability. Really, when you dig into it, what everybody wants are healthy communities. We all want drinking water, right? You may want to hunt and fish and camp in the same places where I want to run and hike and swim. We actually want the same things. And we have to stop making it such a political issue because at the end of the day, it is about the health and wellness of our communities and of our families. That's it. Right? And when we make it something into politics, then I think we lose sight of the humanity around it and we lose sight of humanity's role and impact on other species. That's really interesting. I like that because it also brings it down to the personal values of people too, right? It doesn't matter what side of the aisle you lean towards or, you know, on the political spectrum. It's more of how does it affect our lives? Like, how does it affect our neighbors' lives, our communities' lives? And it really brings it back down to that local area. And I like that aspect. Now, speaking of politics, you ran for mayor. What made you decide to go into politics? You know, like, that seems to be way out there for a lot of people. What made you go into that? What was the reasoning? So I'm going to give a plug for local politics. And when I say local politics, there are so many ways to make a difference. Run for school board. Run for your town council. Run for your water district. Run for being the library trustees. I mean, getting involved in your local community is a way to serve your friends and neighbors and your families around you, your own family. And so it's not only rewarding, but you can get so much done at the local level. There's a famous politician in American history, Tiponio, who would say that all politics are local. And that's very, very true because land-use decisions, for the most part, historically, have been local decisions. And so I, you know, as a young land-use attorney, I moved to Sausalito, land-use environmental law, and I joined the planning commission. And I didn't actually know the planning commission did, but my older colleagues and partners said, "No, this is what you'll be doing. You should join." And I ended up spending 10 years on an awful planning commission in Sausalito. I was the chair a couple of times. And I thought, "Wow, this is so rewarding. I'm helping people figure out how they label them." So I figured out how they lay roots in this community, how we plan, what urban planning looks like, how do we plan for the future. And then I was tasked with looking at a 25-year forward-thinking plan. It's called the General Plan. So in California, every community has to update their general plan every 25 years. And our general plan, it didn't have a sustainability element. There was nothing about disaster preparedness. There was nothing about equity. There was nothing about sea level rise. We're a waterfront community. What about aging infrastructure? And so I began to ask a lot of questions, particularly around flooding and sea level rise. And honestly, I thought the answers could have been stronger, but I'm not really going to sit around and just point fears and criticize. I thought, "Okay, this has got to be my next step." So I ran for office, and I got elected in 2020, and when I became the mayor, we rotate the mayor. When I became the mayor, I really saw firsthand how much you can get done when you roll up your sleeves and you do the hard work and do it at the local level. So that was sort of the path and the journey, but because it became concerned about sea level rise, it became more concerned about disaster preparedness, particularly with the wildfires in Northern California. Yeah, it seems like that is a big thing that I've learned through interviewing people. I did an interview with Rocky, who's in the Philippines. She works for an organization called Rare, where they work with fishing communities. And they've been working with fishing communities in the Philippines to kind of put together like a savings bank, where all the fishermen put in money to this bank so that in case of a natural disaster, they have money. So essentially what happens, they have this marine protected area that they all manage. So it's managed by them. Government help support them, but they manage this by them. But if there's an out of cyclone that comes through, they can't touch anything outside. And so they can't fish because they want it to replenish. They want the marine protection to replenish. So they use that savings bank as a way to pay all the fishermen so that they don't have to worry about going out and fishing and ruining that area. So it's just that preparedness in case of something happening that just kind of allows them to just take a breath, make sure everything's fine at home. They're okay financially and they're able to do that. And it's just almost like an insurance kind of way, but they all manage it together. Talking about preparedness in a place like in North America, whether it be Canada or the US, or Eastern California, that's a big thing. So when you look at sort of disaster preparedness, like disaster management preparedness, what goes into that? What are you looking at? Can you talk a little bit about some of the specifics that go into that, especially when it comes to wildfires? Absolutely. I'm so glad you brought up insurance. You brought wildfires. It's like all the topics I love talking about. I'll work backwards and let you know that one of the ways I get worked on it were a lot of different hats, running from public office, in public office, running a nonprofit. One of the ways is I keep the same themes and then I pull them with different threads. So I'm almost always talking about coastal adaptation, ocean health, the blue economy, and workforce development. I want to create jobs. I want to have an economic driver for achieving resilience around the climate crisis. And so it's such a great question, Andrew, because climate resilience is sort of the name of the game. California has so many risks with wildfires, drought, and sea-laborized due to climate change. And we often talk about adaptation and resilience, which of course can have significant economic implications for infrastructure spending and community planning. One of the major issues in the state of California is the lack of insurance. We've got major carriers wanting to pull out because of wildfires. And because of that, one of the things I'm working on, I'm looking at the agenda right now, the economic risks of climate change for California communities. We've got to work together a one day workshop here in Sausoleito with Department of Insurance, the Environmental Defense Fund, Stanford, UC Santa Cruz, and the Ocean Science Trust, dive into this. Because insurance, TLDR, insurance is the next big climate issue. And you hit the nail in the head. And insurance companies, they know. They look at floodplains. They look at where your houses go. They look at that kind of risk. Climate risk is big on them because they're the ones who are going to have to do the payouts if it happens. We just had locally here in Burlington, we just had flash flooding from squalls and we had the rains from Hurricane Beryl, which started the whole thing. And insurance companies are like, yeah, if the rain comes in from up top, that's a natural act, so we don't cover that. But if it comes from below, it comes from the sewers, we'll cover that. And so some people had their houses flooded up to not only their basements, but to the main floor, and they're not covered. And surprised to them, they've been paying insurance, but they're not covered on that kind of thing. And sometimes it's because there was a, in this case, there was a highway nearby, so the drainage wasn't that great. And so you kind of, the questions that I ask is like, what is my city going to do now to adapt to this? What are they going to do to make sure that this never happens again and how are they going to work with the province or in your case, the state to be able to overcome these types of challenges in the future? Because obviously this is a risk and it's probably going to happen again. We see this coming all the time. So for a place like Sausalito, how far forward does Sausalito look for when it looks at, when it looks at climate risk? Wow, God, what a great question. I'm on the council, really good as far as we can. One of my crowning achievements was I managed to convince the state of California to give Sausal to a million dollars. And you're right in the budget a couple of years ago to do a vulnerability assessment and coastal adaptation plan. I mean, we're the first community right across Golden Gate Bridge. If you're riding your bike, you have to go through Sausalito to get to anywhere else in this county. And so being able to access the thoroughfares in Sausalito is actually really important from a disaster preparedness and transportation perspective. And so I think that's why they elevated this for us. But you know, one of the things I try to do is talk about infrastructure because, you know, as you said, at the top of the call, some people find the word climate to be polarizing. And I'm actually here to try to convince you I'm not a scientist, I'm a policy maker. But what I want to share with you is, can we agree that it's flooding? Can we agree that our infrastructure is aging? Great. I'm going to fix it. We can call it infrastructure. Some of us may think the cause is climate change, but I don't need to argue with you about it. Let's just get together and try to fix the problem and have a forward outlook. Yeah, I mean, that's what it really comes down to. Like we talked about just before. Let's look at the facts here. You can get flooding. There's risk of flooding. Our infrastructure needs updating. Let's put some money into this. That's really important. I would love to learn how the budget has changed over the last, say, like five, ten years, or even since you've been running for office. Now you're on the City Council. How has the budget have been affected due to climate? Like, I mean, we always hear about the investments we have to make, which are quite a few. And it's usually quite expensive, but also like the like the cost of getting over, you know, some of these emergency or extreme events, you know, in wildfires. Like, how has the budget changed locally? Like at a local level, like, Sausalito, in this respect? Yeah, unfortunately, I don't think it's changed enough, but that's of course my bias. One of the ways I've tried to encourage more of an outlook for resilience is, again, like I said, to look at infrastructure. You know, so I always think about resilience as being different from sustainability. Sustainability is sort of how we interact and exchange with a natural environment, but resilience is the ability to come back from an event. So, if we have a flood, do our sewer communities still work? Do our pump stations still work? Are we still having electricity in our communities? You know, are we resilient in that fashion? So I think a lot about planning for infrastructure, planning for roads, looking at nature-based solutions, and that's something we should probably dive into at some point, because the oceans and the waterfront provide such an opportunity. Like, California has lost, I think, all but 5% of its marshlands. And now we see all these coastal areas that are flooding, because we don't have marsh. We only have 5% of our kelp beds left, right? And kelp is a natural carbon sequestration tool and is also a wave attenuation mechanism. And so if we start thinking a little bit more holistically, so at the local level, we're making decisions, we're hiring chief resilience officers, we're trying to invest more in infrastructure and looking for grants. At the state level, we're running a deficit budget right now in California, but we do have allocations for more resilience. Sea level rise, flooding, a lot of wildfire mitigation planning. So some of that stuff gets cut, right? And you have to make sure you tie it back to community health, safety, and economics. Yeah, and you talked about even trying to build up some of those coastal habitats, the wetlands and the mangroves and kelp beds and seagrasses. And there's some organizations that are doing that in California, which is great. But obviously, they can only do so much. Some of the habitats that we need to restore along California are huge and huge swaths. How do you start that, even from a California perspective, as you're running for the lieutenant governor, how does that start to look at from a state perspective in terms of restoration? Do you partner with some of these organizations as a funding mechanism or have a fund to be a restoration fund to put some of these together? Of course, you know, a fund to help protect the ones that are intact or that are already there. Yeah, so it has to be public-private partnerships, ultimately, in order to capture the private and the public lands that are adjacent to oceans or wetlands or other significant areas. There's a climate bond actually on the ballot in California to provide a camera exactly how much, but significant amount of money to help address a lot of these things, or everything from undergrounding to flooding, sea level rise, a wildfire mitigation. But if you think about the coastline of California, one of the places I get most excited about is working with ports, because ports have large land masses and they're also doing a lot of innovative work. I'm thinking about the port of San Diego. They have programs for aquaculture, eco-concrete, underwater sensors, and that is public land. And as a Lieutenant Governor, a lot of people don't know this. The Lieutenant Governor is the only state-wide office that serves on the governing body of all three levels of public higher education in the state. So serves on the UC region, some boats, serves on the state system, the community college, and has a big role for oceans in economic development. Serves on the Ocean Protection Council, serves on the California Coastal Commission, serves on the state lands commission, is the chair of the state economic advisory committee. So if you put those things together, you begin to see, wow, this is like a roadmap for how we move into the future. Yeah, for sure. Is that why you chose to run for the Lieutenant Governor? Because you were able to have influence over those? Exactly why, right? So you've got the state lands commission overseas the use of public lands, and that's crucial for balancing economic development and environmental protection, particularly in coastal areas. And then you think about higher education, and that's the next generation, that's where you're training and workforce development and jobs and driving forward intergenerational equity. So it's such a really cool job, and here's the crazy thing, I've lived here since 1997, and I've never heard any candidates talk about the job. Really? I've always been sort of like a stepping stone or a junior governor. I'm like, guys, look, this is a really cool job. 100%. And it's going to be like, it's an effective job. If you go and you take it seriously and you do it right, it can be very effective in terms of what you can accomplish, or what you can help accomplish with all those other organizations and departments. So the lieutenant governor doesn't set policy directly, but we could use our platform to advocate for what I call climate smart economic policy. So I don't like investments in resilient infrastructure or support for industries that are adapting to climate change, like agriculture or tourism, or even policies to ensure some that would just transition for workers in more carbon intensive industries. There's tons of opportunities, you have to connect the dots and see how they all work together. I love that. I love that. Now, you know, we talked a lot about politics here, and we talked a little bit about, you know, organizations. You started your own, or you founded your own organization. When did you get the idea to start a center for sea rise solutions? That it seems so specific, obviously. You're an entrepreneur, so you niche down. I love that. I love that. But when did you get the idea and when did you decide, okay, I'm going to start to do this and why? Yeah, it is so niche, and I have to apologize. It doesn't have a very clever name. It's perfect. You know exactly what we do. When I was campaigning, I would ask people, you know, what are you most excited about? I'm proud of when it comes to Soslito, and everybody would mention the waterfront, whether it was the water, the views, the sailboats. We have 2,000 marina slips, and we have 400 houseboats. And then I said, what are you most worried about? And they said infrastructure and flooding. And so when I started to look into it, I learned so much about sea level rise, but nobody was talking about it at scale. And honestly, I just thought, well, how do I share this knowledge? I mean, I don't want it just to be in my brain. It's like, okay, well, maybe some type of think tank entity to help spread this. And then as I began to ask around and talk to colleagues and peers on other city councils, both in California and outside, I thought, we're sharing information. And so it became a knowledge sharing type effort that really took off. And that's what it is like. So you wanted to have a resource for people to be able to access. So who is sort of like your constituencies for the center? So initially it was other elected officials. And so the first thing that we did is we went around the country on sort of a listening tour. We went to Savannah, Georgia. We went to Tampa, Florida. We were suddenly in South Toledo. And then we were in Providence, Rhode Island. We had a relationship with Brown University. And we looked at the links between coastal resilience and political will and advocacy and financial impact. And we wanted to understand, like, why in some areas were they slower to act? And it's very easy for people to say, oh, there's no political will. And so we dug in on that. We realized that's actually not it. Sometimes it was poor stakeholder communication. Sometimes it was lack of technical capacity. Sometimes it was a lack of fiscal opportunities. One of the things you see, at least in the U.S., is that there's a lot of grant money, but it's a competitive grant process. Meaning you and I could be mayors of adjacent cities with the same problem. And we are competing for the same bucket of money. Yeah. And so that was killing a lot of innovation and a lot of opportunity to act. And so we packaged that. And we realized we had a gap in our thinking. The gap was around ports. And so we brought ports to the table. And so at the UN Ocean Conference in Barcelona this past April, we partnered with the World Ocean Council, the port and the city of Barcelona. And we launched an effort we call Blue Glue, basically to test the theory of change for whether ports can have an impact on coastal resilience and blue economy by creating jobs, addressing equity and addressing the climate crisis because of where they're uniquely situated along the coastline. That's interesting. So that's the second time you've mentioned ports. And that becomes interesting. And it's also they do get money to be able to put these initiatives into and implement these initiatives. And I think that's that's really important because so many times you see, you know, just a lack of initiative, a lack of implementation or lack of sort of those areas where they can actually put into place because they're remote or, you know, they just need a little extra help. So I think that's really nice that you use ports. So that's that's that's that's pretty cool. Yeah, and I think that's that's really interesting. Even like the whole blue economy aspect, you know, we're starting to hear that term a lot more. It still hasn't necessarily hit the mainstream, but a lot of coastal cities, a lot of coastline areas are talking about, you know, blue economy. And I feel like this is the, you know, one of the first times really starting to put the environment and economy in the same sentence, which it's always, you know, it's either one or the other, like that's been in the past, especially when it comes to politics. How has that been what, like, melding the two together, you know, sort of in your experience when you talk on the city council or as a mayor or even, you know, as a founder of the center of the solutions. It's a pretty natural unification of concepts, because it's about job creation, and it's about addressing the high cost of living through really good paying jobs and understanding the opportunities that we have and addressing the climate crisis at the same time. And so, just for our listeners, you know, the blue economy is about partnering with the oceans and finding ways to use marine resources to explore new opportunities. So it could be nature based stuff like wetlands restoration or living shorelines. It could be seaweed in carbon sequestration. You know, you probably know CB can also produce high value natural polymers that mimic petrochemical plastics. Same with help, right? Carbon sequestration, but can also be used for biogas or collagen, for example, like everything. Yeah. Right. And it's all right here. And there's all these, both economic and climate benefits. So are there like funds, you know, to help startups or funds to look at these different types of businesses that can happen? Well, you know, in the United States, we had the inflation reduction act. We still have the IRA. I think that's the single most important piece of climate legislation, probably in our lifetimes. And I will just flag that I think we're leaving hundreds of millions of dollars of money on the table because we haven't quite executed on the workforce development. So we may talk about the green energy transition or, you know, more study around more data around oceans, the train people. And so part of that is getting back to how do we educate to take these jobs so that we can enter the blue economy or the green energy transition. And it's funny too, because when we talk about that type of transition, workforce comes up quite a bit when people are, you know, not sure, or they're unsure of like, well, how are we going to train all these people? Like, where's the funding for that? Or, you know, what happens to them when they move their job from, say, a fossil fuel engineer to, you know, a renewable energy engineer? How is that going to happen? What kind of government programs are in place? But the IRA has it, and we just haven't been able to utilize it. So where's the challenge in that and not using it? Like, why has that been so challenging or not being used? So if it is for product market fit, I think figuring out what skills are needed and then we can develop the programs. There's a pretty good example here in California. The Biden administration awarded about a half a billion dollars up in Humboldt County, which is Northern California for Offshore Wind. And part of that effort was really to go into the community colleges up there and the CSU is up there and figure out a way to create training and apprenticeship programs. So they were training people to take these jobs to construct and build wind farms. And so just creating that cycle of interrelatedness, I think, is really, really important. And actually this morning I had a conversation with some folks in New York. I'll be going out to New York for New York Climate Week in September, and we're probably going to do something on workforce training and readiness and the climate crisis. And why is it good for corporates and why is it good for the environment at the same time? I feel like that's a conversation that we need to have more and more in the public, you know, sort of just making sure that we get on. So maybe after that, you can come back on the podcast and be able to talk a little bit more about that. Yeah, yeah. That'd be awesome. Now, for, you know, the center of CRI Solutions, it's a resource organization. How many, this is international. This is not just, you know, for Sussolito, this is not just for the US. I know you mentioned Port of Vancouver in there. How do you make this available? And I guess it's relatable to all different, just different places and people who want to know. How do you make it relatable to other places other than US? Well, so it turns out that a lot of these problems that we have as coastal cities or waterfront cities aren't unique to the US. And so, as we started to talk about these conversations, I got invited to speak at Monaco Ocean Week, then in Lisbon at the UN Ocean Conference, and then in Barcelona at the UN Ocean Conference. And in between, which trips to Bioreats, which is along the Mediterranean coast of France, over by San Sebastian, to Venice, to Cache Christ Portugal, which is the sister city of Sussolito. These little communities have the exact same problems as we have. And so you begin to share and make these cross border learnings from one another. And sometimes, you know, look at the Dutch. The Dutch have so much for us to learn from when it comes to water management and flood risk. And so why wouldn't we try to find the best solutions around the world? Yeah, I think that's great. I think that's awesome. Are you ever, is there going to be like a conference for all those people to get into the same room at some point? Yes, I almost as though I teed you up and I did not. Yes, so a couple of ways, if folks want to get involved, there's a couple of things that we're doing right now. So in our first couple of years, we did the tour around the US and then did some international speaking. We took a lot of those lessons learned and we try to identify where there were gaps. And I had mentioned financial issues were gaps as well as do we have all the stakeholders to the table. So our two main sort of event driven efforts right now. One is the economic risk of climate, which I mentioned earlier, which is really how are municipalities and cities and states going to be paying for climate resilience, particularly as when it comes to insurance concerns. And so that's something that we're hosting here in Salcedo in October. And then the other effort is a multi series effort focused more along ports and the connective tissue of ports. We're doing a couple of virtual sessions right now, and then we're going to meet in Barcelona at the Smart Cities conference in November and have a full day workshop. And then sort of the thought partnership that's uniting those putting my campaign hat on, we're going to be doing four different learning webinar series. I've been to anybody for free about Project 2025, the impact of climate dismantling of EPA and other climate regulations, and what this means for democracy really in America, how that can impact global welfare and economic risk. Yeah, you know, I think we're on the same wavelength here because I was just going to ask you, you know, big election coming up in 2024 from a federal standpoint, you know, you mentioned Project 2025. You know, it continues to be analyzed. Actually, a good friend of mine, Angela Villagomez. I'm not sure if you've ever had the pleasure of meeting him, but I think you guys should talk because he's, he's amazing. He works for the Center of American Progress. He just put out a LinkedIn post about a resource of Project 2025, how it affect ocean conservation, how it affect climate change. I'll share that resource with you. I'll send it to you. I've got you on LinkedIn, so I'll send that to you. But it's a great article, you know, to really show, sort of just give you some education, like, you know, there's podcast episodes on there, people speaking and everything, because I think it's really important to get informed, especially for people who aren't sure which way they want to vote, who want to make sure that they vote for the right person, you know, the right party, especially when it comes to the environment. I feel like this is, you know, a pivotal election, you know, seeing it from outside. And we've got one in Canada in two years in 2025. This is going to be pivotal as well when it comes to climate, climate change. So from that perspective, like, what would you recommend, you know, voters to look for when they're voting? Not only seems like it's not only the President's here, it seems like there's a lot of people in Congress and the Senate that also will be voting. So what would you recommend as someone who's who's running for office before for voters to look at, especially when they're when the environment's important, as well as the economy? What do they look for in a candidate? I think what they look for in a candidate is an understanding of with federal policy and what that means to their local communities. In the U.S., we've had some massive shifts. We had that immunity decision so that the Republicans dominated the more power in the executive branch. We had the Chevron Doctrine decision where the United States Supreme Court basically said we're not going to give deference to federal agencies. These are things that are going to make state laws even more important. Now, that's not discounting that this Supreme Court may decide that state law doesn't reign supreme anymore, no pun intended, but look for those down ballot candidates who understand how important it is to have strong environmental legislation at the state level. Can't just be federal. And the other thing I'll point out is sometimes I'll say Project 2025 and people want to get in this debate of whether Trump knows about it or doesn't know about it. And honestly, that's not, that's not what's important to me. What's important to me is that we have a roadmap for the conservative agenda. And it is not good for climate. It is not good for our communities. It is not good for our families. That's what I'm concerned about. So I, the authorship, they already have 450 organizations signed on. They're telling us exactly what they want to do. So, pay attention, right pay attention and be informed about it. Yeah, no 100%. I completely agree. I think that's what it really comes down to is just being informed. You know, whether you think this is going to be implemented or not, you know, if, if Donald Trump gets in, it's still scary to think about this, right? It's still scary from, especially from an environmental perspective. You know, we saw what happened from 2016 to 2020 with the EPA, with the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act. A lot of things got stripped, a lot of power got stripped, which, you know, all these pieces of legislation have worked for the U.S. You know, you look at the Megs and Stevenson's Act, you look at the Endangered Species Act, those have all worked in bringing back species that were at the brink of extinction. And we see that today. We see Great White Sharks doing better. We saw Manatees doing better for a while, you know, and they need to be state, you know, they need to be managed properly. And when they're, when it's okay to take them off, it's okay, but not before, you know, and I think having these, these policies, having the IRA as well will help us in managing and adapting to different environmental changes and just different development perspectives in the future. And I think that's really important. So I think it's good that we continue to be informed. And Janelle, this has been such a pleasure to have you on the podcast and get, you know, this feedback from a politician's, you know, like, perception. I just love it. And it's just, it's just really important that we, you know, I know everybody's like, oh, let's not talk politics when it comes to the environment, but unfortunately, it matters. The policies that are put in place, the people put them in place is just as important as the people who work on the projects like, you know, the science projects and the conservation projects because we can't have those if we don't have the right policies in place. A lot of those times. So we really appreciate the work that you've done all the work that you've done. I don't know how you get it done. That's, it's just phenomenal. We got to prioritize it. Also one last thing, it was devastating at the end of last year to see that the budget for NOAA was getting cut. Right. They want to eliminate data. I think it came back. But I remember I was at the UN Ocean Conference in Barcelona in April, and there was talk about getting rid of research and getting rid of data. And my goodness, we've come so far in terms of understanding ocean temperature fluctuations, species health, more data can only empower us to make better decisions. And that means that we have to allocate financial resources to make that happen. 100%. 100%. You know, this has been so much fun. We really appreciate it. I know right. I know. I know. I love it. This is what happens when you have great conversations. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. We'll definitely have you on before before the before 2026 so we can talk more about that and talk more about the work that you've been able to do. We really appreciate that the work that you've been that you've been doing so far. And thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It was a real pleasure to have you on. Yeah, I really appreciate it. I feel like we could talk for a week in the loop on New York Climate Week. Maybe we'll be able to collaborate on something live. Yes, I love that. That would be awesome. All the time. All the time. Once you say that, I'm like, okay, let's do this. Do you sign a live environmental version? Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Janelle, for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. It was so great to have you on. I'd love the energy you bring. You can tell you're just full of energy and you're definitely a marathon runner. Just with the energy you bring. I don't know how you do it from an ultra marathon runner. That is stuff that you have to have a very strong mind to be able to push through that type of, I guess, pain, athletic pain, I like to say. But I think I love it. I think it's great. I think it's great that it helps you connect to the ocean, to the coastline. It's a beautiful coastline up there in Northern California. And I'm glad you were on the podcast to be able to speak about a number of different items. And I feel like this conversation is not over. We're going to continue that conversation of just sort of the blue economy. What is up? What is going to happen in California over the next couple of years? Her run for lieutenant governor. And I just love the fact that why she's running for lieutenant governor is because she gets to handle and look after more environmental issues. And I think that's really great. Lieutenant governors here in Canada tend to be more ceremonial. You don't really hear about them unless they screw up. But I love the fact that it's not a huge position where you're in the spotlight all the time, but you get to do a really great amount of work in the environment in California, which I love. And I love how that's where Janelle's like, this is where I can make a difference. This is what I'm going to do. And I'm going to run in 2026. Love that. Good luck. Hope to have you on before that race goes forward. But you know, I just, I just think it's great to be able to talk politics and policy within people in the approach to do that on a local level. I think that's great. And I think this conversation is just beginning. But with that said, I'd love to hear questions you might have for Janelle or your thoughts on today's episode. You can comment a number of different ways. This episode is going up on YouTube. So you can comment on the YouTube video. This is going to be on Spotify. So you'll have the video, but you can also comment on Spotify or answer the poll questions that I have. And there's a lot of different ways that you can interact. You can also hit me up on Instagram at how to protect the ocean. And we can have a conversation there because that's what this is. This is the beginning of a conversation. It's why I started the podcast to be able to provide you with some information, love to hear your thoughts on it. No matter what your thoughts, whether you grew with me or not, it doesn't matter. I would love to hear your thoughts on that. So hit me up YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, wherever you'd like. I'd love to hear from you. And I want to thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of The How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time. And happy conservation. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]
