Zion Lights

Bret Kugelmass
So we are here today with Zion Lights who is a science communicator and environmentalist coming all the way from the UK. Welcome to Titans of Nuclear.

Zion Lights
Hello. Thanks for having me, Bret.

Bret Kugelmass
I'm so excited to talk to you. I mean, I first heard you on Chris Keefer's podcast Decoupled which is the best podcast ever. Everyone should always listen to it. And then got a chance to meet you. I guess a month ago, a few weeks ago on video chat. I obviously some mind melding going on. So super excited to talk to that.

Zion Lights
Yeah, it's funny how it falls into place like that sometimes.

Bret Kugelmass
Yeah. So maybe you start off with your background a little bit. First off, actually, can we start with a little more casually? You have a cool name. Do you have like a story where that name comes from?

Zion Lights
Oh, it's such it's quite long story, actually. Yeah, it's to do with the National Park in America.

Bret Kugelmass
Oh, very cool. Did I say it wrong?

Zion Lights
Well, no, I go by Zion this whole mess that opens up if someone thinks you're called Zion so I slightly adapted that. I have to say it's an interesting thing because in, so my parents are Punjabi Indians. They migrated here in the 60s, I did grow up in a very Indian household which most people don't realize, very working class, very Indian. And we, all the kids are like very westernized now, because the second generation in Indian culture, the name thing is just not the same issue. I had uncles I would call a certain name. And it's only when I was an adult that found out that wasn't a real name. Literally like just nothing to do with everyone's name and I'd be like what, how come that's their name, and they'd say, Oh, we will always just call him by his nickname. We never go by the certificate name. That's what they call it. And in India it's because it's because they don't have passports, or birth certificates. They don't have any of that right in the villages. They don't have names on paper, their names just change. Like the name just totally change. They just go by. Really? I know. It's really kind of bizarre, but I in a way I kind of like it. Yeah, I've kind of embraced it.

Bret Kugelmass
So you spent a lot of time in India growing up?

Zion Lights
Oh, no, I didn't I completely grew up here. They took me once when I was a kid. And I really vaguely remember meeting my my grandparents, they you know, they all died quite young by our standards. So I don't have many memories of them at all. And I went again, in my 20s my dad is like, come on, you got to meet all family and they all love you and they all know who you are and I had very little contact with them really. They don't have to zoom out there. It's like occasionally they get to a phone and you speak to them on the phone. It's mostly letters. They would send these envelope letters in the post and it would smell like India I thought. They're written in Punjabi, which I know a little bit of, you know, I didn't learn it formally. I could speak Punjabi and Hindi, but I didn't learn them formally. And yeah, then I went over them was like, wow, this is where you came from. Because they always use a very rosy picture. And thinking about it, of course, came from poverty. You know, you really have to see it to understand if they really didn't have any photos or anything as well, to be fair, they had nothing to show me. I went there and I went, you grew up in this little hut, like, seriously, one room, one room with 11 kids, like I see is this serious dad, you'd like you've never told me this. He just like, well, it's normal over here. And then I kind of thought, well, it is. It just was really, really eye opening for me in my 20s just what they'd come from and how hard they worked to escape it but they always missed it as well because their family is there, you know, they got left behind. They didn't get to come they weren't young workers. And it was a bit of a lottery anyway, of who they picked when they wanted factory workers over here and who they let come. So my dad came but his sister's still there. And she just lives without, you know, without her brothers. So my dad and his three brothers came they were picked because there were men and she stayed there on our own and it's really sad actually because the way she lives. I felt really sad the whole time to how she lives and how she's cooking over it you know like wood little stove. And that's even with my parents sending money so they can get like, you know bags of food. There's just money money goes so far, you know, there's no infrastructure, there's no sewer system. It's nothing. I mean, I know you know this, but really when I saw it, I just thought wow, this people need to understand

Bret Kugelmass
Well yeah, that's what I meant to ask you. Did your experience like that inform your thoughts around environmentalism and what and, and just like poverty and energy prosperity and the differences and did this play a role in it?

Zion Lights
Absolutely. But why I'd say is that I found it very hard to kind of like growing up as a British person, very British identify as British, British, Asian or whatever, British Indian, also having this Indian background. I haven't lived there but I've lived in the culture and it's is the same thing environmentalism kind of go in and I never been able to make a background fit environmentalism. I think this is widely a lot of people are discussing it. Now it's widely understood. It's a very white middle class movement. And I'm very non white working class background, you know, daughter of immigrants coming in with my ideas. And I think a lot of the time people have just gone well, what is she saying? What is she talking about? And there is this idea of like, the idyllic paring back, going back to nature. And I mean, I wrote a book about lowering your carbon footprint, you know, so I kind of bond some of those ideas, but it was more because I just thought, I don't know what the solution is otherwise, you know, but I have I have found even as recently as Extinction Rebellion, when I raised these issues about poverty, people don't care. I mean, literally, one of the co founders in Extinction Rebellion just said to me, we didn't get we don't do that. It's not us. We're not we're not Black Lives Matter. And I was like, I mean, this is why I ended up leaving, right, I was there trying to make this point, and I'm quite portable, as you can see, so I think if anyone's gonna make it, I've got the experience, I'm going to say it, I just get completely just, it would just get off the table. And after a while, I just thought, this doesn't work for me, but there isn't really a space.

Bret Kugelmass
Yes. It's so weird. I mean, yeah, God, I mean, I feel your pain, because, like, I like the environment. Like, you know, I didn't really have much of it growing up. But you know, like, when I went to college, I start going on hikes and stuff and kind of appreciating going some trips outside of home and appreciate nature and beauty. And so you think, Oh, well, I'm an environmentalist I want I want to protect this. But then you get to know environmentalists and you're like, Oh, God, some of you are awful people. Is that too harsh?

Zion Lights
Some of them, and some of them are the leadership type people, you know, the leaders, that's the problem, because a lot of them are lovely people, I'm still friends with them. The leaders were I had lashes where I'd say what about these ideas, and I just be told, we couldn't talk, we couldn't talk about that, you know, I actually, there were so many issues, actually, you know, I know, Extinction Rebellion and reacted quite badly to me, like going out and saying some of this stuff publicly, but there's a lot that I didn't say, you know, like about this issue, where it's not that they didn't understand it, that they didn't care. And that's really sad. And I'm very outspoken about that. Now, because I realized someone needs to be and they take it very, I know, people take it very personally, but someone needs to say and it needs to change. What is why environmental groups are so kind of anti human, it's ridiculous.

Bret Kugelmass
Anti human. That's right, anti human. And so is this where this whole idea of like eco modernism, or eco pragmatism comes into play, this is like, the people like us who you know, like in environmental stuff, but also like human beings and want to see, like, humans thrive and prosper and, and, and get to enjoy the environmental stuff, you know, and like, I have everyone enjoy it, right? I mean, is that is that? Or do you call yourself an eco modernist then?

Zion Lights
I actually don't I mean, I'm very non tribal, like I really don't identify, don't need the terminology. And I don't like with, you wouldn't believe how many labels I get put on me just anyway. And maybe that is to do with having a, you know, a double background, like just people never know, you know, is she British, is she Indian, is she Punjabi, is she an immigrant is she going on, she's speaking a different language, you know, I've always had that kind of like, we just don't know where to put you. I mean, for me, personally, I just never really ascribe to any group's values. I'm a bit weird like that. You know, I used to be in the Green Party used to be very challenging in the party used to call things out. And eventually I left because it didn't work out. And same thing happened with Extinction Rebellion. And to be honest, a whole load of other groups in between. My first the first time it's happened, and I think that's just because I don't, you know, I am quite challenging because for me, it's more important to look at evidence and be honest, and to discuss things than to just follow the tribe and that bit where you can't discuss things I really don't like, I think that's bad.

Bret Kugelmass
Yeah, it's, it's amazing. And so, I mean, this is why, I mean, I hear a lot in your message that resonates with me, some of my favorite, you know, podcasters, or like New Age journalists, whatever you want to call them. I feel a lot of them they're like the common theme, but also, the recurring theme within every one of their episodes, is it's all about communication. It's all about like, having a discussion, right, having a discussion and arriving at the right answer or not. I don't know if they say this, but maybe I feel this way. Not getting so emotionally tied to a position. I mean it's okay to be emotional. It's okay to be passionate. Like, that's great. But then you have to also be able to take a step back from that in order to learn and listen to others. And I don't know, it's, it's kind of a better feeling like I don't know about you, but I, I feel like I sleep better at night, when I've had, like more meaningful discussions, maybe even discover that I'm wrong. And just, it's hard, but try to drop your ego about a topic rather than just fight all day and tell everyone how right your position is.

Zion Lights
Yeah, so I mean, you know, I made that I made that big change. I made that big u-turn on on nuclear and then people think that's really unusual, although I think actually it's not as unusual as people think. I think people just are less public about it. I've had a lot of support as well as attacks. We should normalize, we should normalize being able to change your mind from evidence. I mean, that's a big thing. That's amazing. I can completely behind that.

Bret Kugelmass
Yes, we should, we should normalize being able to change your mind. Yes, that's perfect. So yeah, so Extinction Rebellion. So what is it? They're, they're all about climate change, but don't like nuclear. Is that the idea there?

Zion Lights
No, no, actually, you know, they've got three demands, they're very clear, and everything else is up for debate. So you know, technically you don't have to, you know, there are people in it because you run into a pronuclear. I think, to be honest, a lot of people have left now anyway, and kind of falling apart or whatever. But when I was there, you know, there are people with mixed views on all kinds of different issues. But the thing though, right where it is what the group say they stand for. But then my experience has been that then so many people in group have attacked me for being nuclear, there's no way I could have been at Extinction Rebellion, and openly pro nuclear. So when I went on the Andrew Neil show, and he asked me about that, his very specific question was about I mean, there are two specific questions. I've covered the first one a lot. But the second one was asked what we're going to do to replace gas, I wanted to say nuclear I was already pre nuclear at that point. I knew there's no way as a spokesperson, I could say that. But I also knew, if I said, renewables, I would have got a pat on the back. And I kind of sat there not really knowing what to say. And again, just not being able to say anything, and then just go, I can't I just can't be a spokesperson. And they do have a an Extinction Rebellion rewilding group, and they have an Extinction Rebellion renewables group, they don't have a nuclear one. And honestly, I think, no way to do it, because you get bullied. And that's where I don't like it when the discussion is shut down, when you're not allowed to have different opinions, which isn't what they're supposed to be, but that is my experience of what happens. All of these groups, not just them.

Bret Kugelmass
Have you taken a step back to try to figure out why that is? Why does saying you like nuclear get you bullied? Where saying renewables and like renewables, okay, it's like what are renewables are, they just talked about, like wind and solar, maybe some tidal, hydro, maybe? I mean, is it just this idea that if you say renewables, you're actually not even picking one energy source? So you get to like, have that kind of cover fire from the shortcomings of that energy source? But if you say nuclear, yeah, why does that lead to bullying?

Zion Lights
Want to know real answer about what people think when you say renewables? I'm going to go ahead and say this, because it's what I used to think a long time ago. Oh, well, it's natural. It comes from the sun. Oh, well, it's natural, it comes from the wind, or natural, you know, and then obviously, I started looking into it. And when the massive like mining projects, huge infrastructure, factories, creating turbines, you know, like, massive industry right? You know, this myth will not die like it is the worst myth when it was nuclear people think huge, bad industry evil corporations. But I've said to people, when they said that, well, what have they done? Name me one. Because fossil fuels, right I could, I can name things. I can name things, where it's been in the news that, you know, they've entered some climate action somewhere or something out of lobby, something that I disagree with, but nuclear, actually, I looked into it, I couldn't find any so I kind of go what, what is it? And then they don't have anything? I mean, I kind of well have you looked into renewables, maybe some of those companies are doing something you don't agree with, but they don't even go that far. You literally don't go beyond thinking, Oh, well, it's natural, that it just needs to die, you know, Jonathon Porritt quite a well respected writer, long term environmentalist over here used I think used to be Hero of Friends of the Earth or something back in the day. He just wrote a rather damning piece in The Guardian, just a few days ago. And the title, I'm not kidding you. The title is like, you can't agree with nuclear technofix. His solution is renewables. I tweeted him and I said, he's saying that nuclear is not technology. Are you saying that falling for huge mass grid scale, like spread everywhere renewables is not a techno fix? I'm sorry, that's a lie. Terrible journalism. I mean, he didn't respond that the entire basis of his argument is wrong, just completely, you know that and I'm challenging that a lot. And finding that people just haven't even thought about it and it's the weirdest thing of course they haven't he didn't think about it, if we didn't think about it, and the editor that commissioned it and then put it online didn't think about it. You know, what, why am I then having to go on about it? Should we think about this is this good journalism? I mean, it's not good journalism is terrible. It's terrible journalism.

Bret Kugelmass
Terrible journalism. And, like, I don't understand that either. I mean, like we've reached out to like when we first came to DC, and we were just all about advocacy and research. And when we started learning things, and we tried to develop relationships with journalists here in DC. I mean, there's a lot of big media outlets out here and a lot of them have like dedicated environmental people. I took them out to coffees just to get to know them, you know, put a face to the name, hey, I'm doing this stuff. Okay, let's keep in touch and then anytime that I wanted to offer any insight that was pro nuclear, or hey, like there's another side to renewables that you're not seeing. No response, not the journalists were not interested in even talking about. It wasn't like, okay, let's talk this through. Maybe I'll write about it, maybe I won't. It was like radio silence.

Zion Lights
I mean, I've said things and then I've just, I can just tell from the conversation, the journey is kind of gone. Oh, okay not covering that. So it doesn't matter. You know, and I'm trying to say, you need to change the way that you report on this issue. You know, it's why I made that little video about Fukushima just kind of doing some myth busting, because the way that was being reported and a lot of places was just completely not for it. But it is, so much of it does come down to this like it's it's to do with feelings, right? It's not to do with that. It's not to do with facts. And actually, as you just said those things don't change people's mind. Feel renewables is like, Oh, it's climate friendly and it's wind and sun. I love it. And they feel like so anti vaxxers it's exactly the same thing. Anti vaxxers feel that oh injection, sharp metal needle cold scientists, the scientists in the lab, you know, that's not what I think a scientist is what they think, Oh, you know, synthetic, non natural. Are you telling me it's more the fact that a bat could bite you make you sick? I mean, long COVID it goes on for months, right? Making really sick, better, because it's natural. I mean, it is natural. Oh, a bat bite you, okay, sure. That's not so good. Yeah, not just always, let's be, let's be really honest about it. But again, they get into this depth people almost to trying to avoid because if I start to look at them too closely, it changes who they are and their ideology. And actually, they get very defensive. And you know, I've had a lot of I get a lot, I get called a lot of name. It's not different. You wouldn't believe it. But it's not different than what I used to get when I first wrote my book. I wrote a book on green parenting, but it's clearly evidence based. And the reason I wrote it is because I was pregnant with my daughter, and every book that I read about how can I live in a green way was just full of Whoo. Oh, pseudoscience, like, use this homeopathy. I was just like, Oh, my God, like, what? I couldn't find a single book. So I went, I'm gonna have to write it. My publisher was like yep. Okay, that's great. Sounds great. No one's done it before it and it had a chapter on vaccines. So actually, I've read so much about them. I'll put one in that's just got them. And oh man, I had hate mail. People say I'm going to go give you one stars on Amazon because I like the rest of the book. But I don't like to be on vaccines. People say you're big for- yeah, literally saying that in my emails. People saying I'm a big pharma shill now I get them, you know?

Bret Kugelmass
Yeah, they always. Yeah, the shill, right. Yeah.

Zion Lights
Yeah. So I've been here before I've been in this space before.

Bret Kugelmass
You're trained up and ready to go. One could say you're vaccinated against the abuse.

Zion Lights
It really is the same. I mean, and it is abuse. It is abuse. Bret. You know, this isn’t acceptable behavior. This isn’t acceptable.

Bret Kugelmass
Well, this is why I'm not on Twitter. Like, I can't take it. You mean you're a lot tougher than I am. This is why I have so much respect for you. Like you can actually take it. I just hide away. I'll talk but won't like listen to the public, you know, over Twitter at least. Yeah, I that's why I like talking at conferences. I deliver a talk at a conference. And then people come up to me one by one for the next hour to like, debate my opinions or debate what I said one of them, and I'm like, that's a real like good interaction. Because A, they're all really smart. They're experts, like as a scientific conference experts in the room, I get to have like a bit of back and forth. Oh, let me clarify my thinking on that. Or Oh, you made a really good point. I'm actually going to adapt my next speech to that. But the public Twitter, I cannot handle it. Like I just emotionally cannot handle it.

Zion Lights
Problem is, and I understand that completely, problem is that those people in that room influence the decision making as much as these people fighting in Twitter, posting all this nonsense, and no one's there challenging it and their nonsense pervades. And that is what happened with nuclear. You know that I'm not gonna sit around and take that. And frankly, I feel a little bit guilty that I used to be one of those people. I was never nasty, and I was never that bad, but I used to be on the other side. And now that I'm informed, I think, well, actually, people like me on your side would have responded someone like me coming in and having the discussion. So I'm happy to have that. But it does mean that I then have to also just take nasty people shouting that. You wouldn't honestly, wouldn't believe it. I could write a book about the interactions I have with some people. Sometimes, even then sometimes they start out quite nasty, and then they calm down and they go away. And, you know, I think maybe they've started to think about it because again, it's much more about how you make someone feel. It's almost like crashing against you and you're just calm. I mean, haven't really recently with the debate which you might want to look at it but it's terrible. I did a debate with Rupert Read. Do you know who he is?

Bret Kugelmass
No, tell me all about it.

Zion Lights
Massive anti nuke, and one of the loudest voices I would say, you know, that same kind of old school, Jonathon Porritt, older man, old school environmentalist, spokesperson for the Extinction Rebellion used to be a Green Party candidate, very in the fray. I used to work alongside him in Extinction Rebellion. I wrote the newspaper, he was one of my economists, I edited newspapers. Oh, boy, did he take it personally, when I came out as for nuclear, just, I mean, I had to block him on Twitter right away, because he was getting quite rough. And I was asked to do this debate on nuclear energy. And I said, yes, and it was months ago. And then he kind of emailed me a few weeks ago, and they said, here's your opponent, Rupert Read, here's the time. And I just went, I want to go up against this person. And I wouldn't have just done it was if it was debate, because I knew he would just shout me down. I mean, that's his style. He's a professor, he's university professors, what we've just seen. So it was 15 minutes of talking. So I thought, well, I can put my point across in the slides. And people see that whatever happens in the debate, he didn't have slides he just kind of spoke off with and then I did 15 minutes, the slides are online. And then the actual debate if you watch it, you know, I think even if you're anti nuclear, it's hard. It's hard to say, oh, yeah, I respect you, but he did a good job I had. So my inbox was flooded with people saying, I'm so sorry you sat through that, and well done, and he's a bully, and you watch it honestly, Bret, it's online? Barely let's me finish a sentence. As you can see, I'm perfectly capable of talking, I would say, can I just finish my point? About 20 times, and each time he would shout me down, he would shout me down. And I couldn't finish. And so that's his best argument. It kind of speaks volume.

Bret Kugelmass
And so how does that work? So, do you actually end up winning that interaction? Because people can like read your emotions and see how calm you are? And therefore give more credibility?

Zion Lights
I think there's a lot in that. Because if I just get rages, people just see who's the ragey people? You know, I think actually, he just comes across as a bit desperate, but also his arguments were poor. If you can't win your argument on merit, of course, you're going to start shouting, at minority people. What I would mostly say is this getting in the fade is important thing, like people watch it and go, oh, you know. And up against him, I mean, although he was so bad that even the moderator apologized to me afterwards. Universities ARE looking at putting in a policy to mute people, never had to do that. Because I guess people are saying in the chat, mute him, he's not letting her finish talking. They didn't have it in their policy. And for the first time, they had to consider it because he was that bad. I said to the moderator and the organizer, who also apologized on the phone, I said, this is what happens if you let anti nuclear people on board, you wouldn't let an anti vaxxer on board. And that's basically what I said in my slides is you shouldn't be having this debate. scientific consensus. Nuclear is completely clear. Why are you having this debate? You know,

Bret Kugelmass
That I think is part of the problem. I think the structure of any given debate, actually, because like, who sits through, you know, not too many people like sit through and like, listen. Yeah, maybe like, like really intellectual people who like really want to like dig into stuff. But most people don't, most people just like read a headline. So if you see a headline of nuclear versus anti nuclear, and almost that, to some extent, validates the anti nuclear opinion. I'd almost rather see a series of debates that started with the premise that we need a massive scale up of nuclear, but it's still a good debate of like this strategy, or this strategy, like SMRs versus advanced reactors, like I think just that headline, you know, which one of these do we need: SMRs or advanced reactors? Just the implication of reading that headline, like, under that message is, oh, we obviously need nuclear. So now it's a matter of like, which choice of nuclear, I kind of like that is sending a message.

Zion Lights
And I said that in my slides, and I said, you know, in my presentation, I just said, Why can't we move his compensation on? You know, the IPCC says we need about 50%. And why don't we start having a conversation about where they're going to go? And who's going to pay for them? And how should they? You know, people are concerned about this. Let's talk about it. Never going to talk about it. We're stuck, stuck in this stupid, same argument we've been having for 40 years.

Bret Kugelmass
Yes. I love that. How are we going to pay for it is almost better, because it implies that you need it. And so then the question if you sit if you say how are we going to?

Zion Lights
Well we do need it. But also, you know, what I need to make it completely clear when I do the debates, the thing is, the debates will happen whether or not I'm among them. I know how nasty people can get on the other side. So, you know, there's not a lot of people that would do it. So I do them. Always say to the organizers, you know, you need to think about, you wouldn't allow someone on, homeopathic practitioner, or whatever they call themselves, debate a doctor, you wouldn't do it. You wouldn't have an anti vaxxer. It would seen as irresponsible at this point. You wouldn't have Andrew Wakefield who's credit is stripped of status Andrew Wakefield, coming on debating an immunologist, just wouldn't do it. And it is exactly the same. It's not going to- and the only reason I went on was to do those slides, in my presentation, say them very clearly. Because then the audience is hearing it. And hopefully, I'm part of that message sinks in. And to be honest, I think he just proved my point because he was a raving, raving, anti science type person, honestly, like none of his arguments held any water. And they sort of then ended up on building costs. But those aren't arguments or sciences or political arguments. It's a different debate, we can have that debate. Let me speak, which he didn't, which he really, really didn't. I mean, you could watch it and see the moderators really struggling probably six or seven times ask him to let me speak. And he doesn't.

Bret Kugelmass
It's, it's interesting, though, I've never understood like, the moderator didn't have a mute button. But I do feel like and maybe this is just in debates in general, like, you have a moderator there for a reason they're there to like, you create, like a good like experience for the audience. If the moderator doesn't have a mute button, they can walk up to the podium and like, tap someone on the shoulder and be like, Hey, listen, I'm gonna kick you out unless you start like respecting the person. Why don't they do that? I feel like moderators never have any balls. I don't get it.

Zion Lights
I mean, I complain to them. And that's pretty much what I said. I said, you have a freedom of speech policy, you and I both read it. You allowed that to be compromised. But I said, I mean, they apologized, you know, what more can they do? And now they're going to see to the way they do things going forward, but frankly, they should not have debates like that going forward. And this is no different than when I started out at XR, Extinction Rebellion. And they did lots of things that were very effective. One of the things we did was we went to the media and we said, Why do you on the BBC have a climate denier debating climate scientists? This is wrong. Yeah. Consensus is that I mean, we did good stuff that we did and why I really like being involved in the beginning. This is wrong, raises consensus, you have to stop it. They changed their policy. Because we went, and it worked, we went and blockaded their doors, people superglued on, it was all over the news. I don't know how much it reached outside of UK, but it was like all over our news. They invited some from the media tell the truth group and XR to go in and talk them. And they say, you know, they just made the same points I'm making now. And they convinced them and then slowly, things like climate emergency, climate and ecological crisis, all that wording that came from Extinction Rebellion from the media, it became now normal language, net zero. And from that came from Extinction Rebellion. You know, I know lots of people have lots of criticisms of them, but they did a lot of good work and I'm completely behind that it, we did great work. And now the Prime Minister here is putting that zero into it, you know, which, which had never happened before. Because we helped to change the dialogue. We got in the fight, same things gonna happen for nuclear.

Bret Kugelmass
I was literally gonna say, you know what my next question is.

Zion Lights
I'm doing it, I'm in there. Okay. I'm in the trenches and some frontline.

Bret Kugelmass
Okay. So can we talk actually a little bit about the like, the logistics, like, how many people? How many people were in Extinction Rebellion? Or how many people were at Extinction Rebellion, able to, like, rally together to like, you know, chain themselves to stuff? And can nuclear do the same? And how many people can we actually gather to convince the BBC, can we change the framing of the debate from not like, should we have nuclear, not nuclear? But like, should we have 70% nuclear or 90% nuclear.

Zion Lights
I actually, so a few things. One thing is, I don't think that Extinction Rebellion strategy of mass arrest worked. They did have over 1000 people arrested through the rebellions, entire strategy is dependent on getting, like, I think it was 5% of the population. It's like 2 million people. That didn't work. Right. So that strategy didn't work. And actually, I think it would never work. It was not, it was too niche. There's just a very niche group of people that are willing to do that and go to jail, but it's not going to fill the jails. You know, do what happened during Martin Luther was, you know, campaign that's the model that it was based on by people that came up with that before I came on board. My strategy was always more media, How do we go out in the media and and that's why I founded an entire newspaper, you know, because we're not reaching people, we're just on social media all the time you just reaching echo chamber. How do we get out of the echo chambers? So we printed, at the height - it's the monthly newspaper - I think at the height we had about an 80,000 printed on recycled paper and it was distributed poorly. And just just to recap, so it's called the hourglass it was completely like group inception but I really loved it. I was the editor literally had to work with the designer to have each page designed you know, existed before a logo made got the bots people to help with the logo and no stencils printed and then got got all the writers on board and got illustrators to go in kind of like little adverts plots because we didn't want actual adverts. And then, so it had the format of the newspaper and it didn't really have that Extinction Rebellion branding. It wasn't about that, it was about climate reporting and showing what it could look like if you just, you know, focus on issues. And I always made sure that I put in stuff like, Let's talk about indigenous rights, I had that on the cover of number of forest defenders that get killed, you know, all the things, homelessness even and how it's impacting them, how the climate impacts them. And threats go up when there's more extreme, you know, the all kinds of stuff. So we've got, you know, had a very broad coverage, as I say, we've got had a column in there. And at that, then it would go out, so it would be printed once a month, like volunteers around the country would take that day off, have a day off, ready to go and they got these giant pallets in like 10 locations, they get like whatever 10,000 copies, then they would distribute them to their local groups who would then put them in libraries, standouts, obviously, it's all pandemic - stand outside Tube Stations, train stations, handing them out, I didn't take them on to university boards.

Bret Kugelmass
This is like so great.

Zion Lights
I mean, this is what I did. Yeah, this is what- I'm grassroots. And the best thing for me was in the letters, people that wrote in, I had like people saying, whoever put this through my door, please put it through again, you know, I find it really interesting. And I didn't know this stuff, and I don't really watch television or whatever, and they didn't-some groups, they hadn't even heard of Extinction Rebellion. Some groups, some people didn't really know much about climate, you know, it was really was reaching, completely reaching outside of the echo chamber, which was the point for me, because I wasn't doing it to be in this like little protected tribe. It's not really my thing. I'm more like, right, how do we get the message out there. And, it ran, you know, basically ran until the pandemic, which killed it, because to distribute to anyone, the entire model was just volunteers on the street, we just get rid of so many copies through that. I mean, I went out and did it in my area, just post them through the person's door, you know. So it's quite exciting. And I can't remember how we got onto this, but you know, that was funded by Accenture, but I couldn't have done it if they hadn't been donations to do it and agreed, you know, signed off on me doing it.

Bret Kugelmass
And so where this was going was how do we translate some of these lessons about, you know, how do you do effective communication, how to do effective grassroots campaigning and translate that, you know, to nuclear advocacy?

Zion Lights
Yeah, so what I was gonna say is, I wouldn't use the same models, and I was quite critical of a lot of these models, especially the arrests, because I think that's a very privileged position. And actually, you know, for a lot of people, that is not an option. And like, I know, from just growing up in the way my brother experienced, you know, hustle from not even necessarily police, like security guards and stuff like that, when you go out clubbing, like just, I just, yeah, it's a different space. And actually, it was started-

Bret Kugelmass
The problem is, it brings like, the concept of, even if it's not, even if it's passive, and they're the ones doing the violence, it brings violence into the converse.

Zion Lights
So I think because, also, they were always a bit militant to me, and was only ever going to be quite niche. And I'd sit in these meetings, messaging meetings, where we'd be coming up with like - I wasn't leading them, I was on the paper, that was it - you know, I was in these meetings, I would help contribute, come up with phrases. And they'd have sort of like, Everybody Now, we're going to have on our posters, Everybody Now. And that's what they had. I just sit there thinking, That's not not enough to get everyone, you know, your strategies don't appeal to them. That's not going to work. And then when research was done a little bit later, after it had been around for about a year, and research found that it was predominantly older, white middle class people, it's just fact. And they're almost, I think it was something like 70% of them are Green Party members. Very niche. You know, that's not even, you know, not even the major party here. So, never reached that Everybody Now and I think actually is a little bit arrogant to just say, Well if we keep saying it, how come, well, no, why don't you talk about how you actually had to engage your communities? Why don't you go out and speak to other groups and ask them what they want to do and do more bottom up grassroots model. So it was a bit like, do you know anything about all the "New Power" model? Pretty interesting. So, there's a whole book on it, that's really interesting that's worth reading. Basically, lots of things like becoming more New Power now. Even like things like Apple, the way that employees work, they get to give more feedback, you know, because they started to do it, and wanted to do it and the employees responded, and now they're much more part of the organization. Lots of different companies have done it, trying to think of other examples. Reddit's a really good example very user led. But Facebook's the opposite, right? Facebook's like top down they make changes, everybody gets annoyed when they change then they don't give us any notice, they've just decided they're going to add this thing. We just kind of had to go with it. And actually as a result, Facebook's completely just- look at the stats like it's dying, like anyone uses it. Things that are on the up are more, like user led things like Reddit, you just saw what happened with Reddit, right? With that guy and the what was it the chain thing? You see that? I can't remember his name. He started a campaign to buy load of stocks with it?

Bret Kugelmass
Oh, yes. Oh, I know, you're talking about. But yeah, the Reddit stock thing where they, where they did the short sell type thing,

Zion Lights
And people just jumped in. And you know, it's very, and you can't control the New Power. That's the thing. It's and I think it's great because, you know, it's people led, of course, it's great. And I read this really good book about how lots of things are going in that direction, and actually one, one thing that brought Trump to power was that he did kind of let these groups have this autonomy. And XR, I think we tried to do that in the beginning by saying groups can go and do this, as long as they abide by the principles. But actually, it was very prescriptive, even down to what branding you could use was very prescriptive, strategies were very prescriptive, you couldn't really deviate for those. And I think that was always gonna make it peter out.

Bret Kugelmass
And so is there a different cohort that we can organize? Like, I didn't grow up with much money, I think of myself as more blue collar anyway, you know, I kind of like the blue collar type stuff. And so I've never really, you know, felt super comfortable around like the upper middle class and the like elitist values. And so I'd almost rather build a cohort of more blue collar folks to champion.

Zion Lights
I mean, that's been one of my arguments, I've written about this for nuclear, which is that it brings jobs. If you say no, to all these industries, you're saying no to jobs, you know, for all kinds of working class people, and I, you know, again, that's another argument that I bring in, and then it's like, there's just silence in the room. It's not even a schema. It's not even on these people's radar, they don't understand the experience. Whereas my parents, you know, my parents were very working class, they worked in factories. They literally, I mean, what better way as well to integrate immigrants than literally helping?

Zion Lights
My mum used to make pots and pans, you know, and then my brother became an engineer, and he helped to make some of the structures in the UK, these are really like, integrative This is brilliant.

Bret Kugelmass
I know, it's so brilliant, I remember reading about this, this government project where it was the slums of, I don't know, some country, maybe Brazil or something. And instead of the government just coming in and building houses for everyone, they came in, and they they built just like one room, and maybe like left, like a stack of bricks, and like bricks are like currency in some communities, like, when you get some extra money, you know, you don't actually have a bank. So you got to like buy a brick, and that is like your stored value of funds. And then people are like, literally building their houses. And then it's not just like government housing that you just like, you know, tear apart and don't care about. No, you have a sense of ownership. And so I can see how that same idea applies to like giving immigrants a job to build the country.

Zion Lights
Yeah, a sense of ownership. But there's also just something that brings people together that I think a lot of these people that I've spent time around in these green groups, I don't think they get it because it's not their background. But I saw the way you know, when you work on a shift or whatever, it is hard, you know, it's hard work. You're on your feet, and my dad got like, back damage from picking up boxes, heavy boxes all the time. As you know, back in the 80s, they didn't have the same modern safety regulations. My mom lost her hearing one year because the machinery was so loud, where she was sewing things all day, you know, eight hour shifts, and then they do night shifts as well. You know, it was a real sense of community. And then you go in, you have lunch, and you break bread together, and you're a bit like, Oh, well, what's he eating? It's a bit weird. You'd be like, yeah, this is our bread. And they worked, really did, it worked, it created a bond. And people say to me, this is a real concern of people on the left, right? They say, Oh, you know, it's becoming very whatever racist or separatist or like, don't like immigrants. I'm like, this is the way you bring people together. They work together to form solid communities, you know, they have each other's back. But they're eroding that, which we are here, most of our industries just gone, completely outsourced. You can talk about getting solar panels, where they're coming from, they come from China, we don't really build anything here anymore. We don't have those communities, of course that's going to happen. And actually, also we don't have enough jobs, the unemployment rates higher than it has been ever since I was, you know, born. Of course, we were going to turn against each other and say, Well, he looks a bit different. And he's got a job. And I haven't I mean, this is just common sense. Again, I'm saying it and I think people who just always had a cushy job and their dad had a cushy job, and they from a line of cushy jobs, and I'm in university, so with a cushy job, and I have houses, you know, they actually can't understand it. And me, it's problematic that they've become leaders of this movement. And actually, then all the other stuff we talked about all the issues exist. Of course they exist if these are the leaders. It's short sighted and they don't represent most people. Most people that I speak to care about environment and they care about climate change, and not in these groups. So what's happening there?

Bret Kugelmass
Okay, so how do we take all these incidents? I mean, you laid out an extremely compelling argument. What do we do with it now?

Zion Lights
I'm launching a new campaign!

Bret Kugelmass
Okay, tell me about the new campaign. What's it called?

Zion Lights
It's called Emergency Reactor. There is a climate emergency, we need an emergency reactor, we need to put them everywhere. Build more, not less

Bret Kugelmass
Amazing. And Emergency Reactor, like people might come to it thinking something else. And then is that like part of the draw? Like, it's a little bit of like a gotcha, like a headline where it's like, where this is going?

Zion Lights
It is. So, you know, you talk about climate change or poverty or anything, you want a reaction, right? We just won't talk. I'm bored of talk, I'm just talking all day, what are we going to do for action, and we're going to do actions, you know, not like, get people arrested, putting them off. And hopefully, it'll be user led to people who get involved and say, I want to do this action. And I say, Great, Let's try and get the troops sit squabbling on all day. Let's see if they'll actually get up and come out and do it. You know, and that also is a really good way to get press. Yep. You know, which is a big issue here is that our press is quite-

Bret Kugelmass
Yeah, so okay, what is Emergency Reactor going to do? Give me some concrete goals that you have set out?

Zion Lights
Right, we are launching Emergency Reactor, go to emergencyreactor.org. There are going to be lots of different fun actions that you should hopefully see all across the news. Although it is hard to get coverage. I have some friends who could pull credits before and sometimes they've just completely ignored them. Others I have managed to get them to report you know, this is the thing, right? If you feel good yourself to something you probably will get, you know, everywhere. And maybe at some point, I'll end up doing that. And we're starting off, you know, I'm doing University tours in April. So I'm speaking at like, I think it's one university aweek, for 10 weeks. And yeah, and it's about how the Green Movement has made things worse, it's how the Green Movement has helped poverty and climate change to get worse. And you know, maybe-

Bret Kugelmass
Is it going to- I mean, COVID is still going on and that kind of stops a lot of like the in person interaction, are we going to just wait for a few months and like, maybe just organize for a few months and then get some people to do stuff when things-

Zion Lights
Well that's the thing, because of the restrictions, it's very different now that there are lots of digital actions so we're gonna have like a Take Action button, make it super easy. Click on the button, you select whichever green organization you want, whoever you want to go after. And then it's a standard letter saying, I'm emailing you asking you to stop opposition of climate action, which is nuclear energy. And I'm also launching a video - it should probably come around, it might already be out around this time - but the video I'm just going to call out, I'm going to say this is Emergency Reactor, we're asking people, if you have a membership to RSPB or to - if you don't know, it's the Royal Society of Protection of Birds, protesting very heavily protesting Sizewell Power Station, even though - I do understand they're like funny about their land use, like, you know, they have done it to be fair with renewables as well. But in the past, they allowed a gas plant at Saltholme, at the reserve in Saltholme, a few years ago. So, you know, they get enough money, apparently, but the nuclear, they're really heavily campaigning against it. So anyway, I'm calling on people to just cancel the membership. Because if you are subscribing and giving money to these organizations, you are preventing climate action.

Bret Kugelmass
Yeah. Okay, writing letter campaigns. That's a good one. I mean, the World Bank needs to be on that list, too. I can't believe the World Bank like has a prohibition against funding nuclear, like the International Finance Corporation, which is a part of the World Bank, prohibition against nuclear makes absolutely no sense.

Zion Lights
Exactly. There's so many and then there is also the option to you know, email your your local MP to ask what their opinion is, what their stances and if you're a member of political party, ask them. I mean, obviously, the Green's anti, but some of the groups even like Labour and the Lib Dems, I think they are pro but they're very quietly pro because again, it's just this contentious issue. You wouldn't be like that about climate change. Now they're all shouting climate emergency, we need to catch up, catch up with the science, you know, with reality with facts. There'll be lots of campaigns like that. So you can kind of pick and choose, right? This is just really easily laid out for me, which bit am I going to do right? I have a Devon Wildlife Trust card. I saw their CEO saying that nuclear is is bad for the environment. I'm going to cough up my card right now, because actually that's what people need to be doing and you don't have to go and glue yourself to anything to be able to do that, you know.

Bret Kugelmass
How do you get people to go to come to the website? That's another thing like in marketing, we call top of the funnel. How do you even get people to the point where they can then read your content and decide to take action? Towards, okay, you can maybe get like a room of 100 people, and maybe 50 of them are in passionate about it and go to the website, you do those once a week, okay, maybe that's like 5000 people are able to line up over a few months or a year. What else helps to get people to come?

Zion Lights
There's lots of different strategies. So the university tour is an interesting one, because when I asked at universities, all them were like, come and speak from we'd love to have you speak. And I said, No, because I'm just speaking in an echo chamber, what I'm going for is the Climate Action Group. Every group I'm speaking at is a Climate Action Group. And, you know, obviously, some of them respond, and they're not going to, but we need to normalize it and make it okay to have this opinion. And maybe it will backfire. Maybe there'll be a cancel culture thing happen, but good, then that will blow the lid off of the entire, because that's what happened, right? It's what happens. You talk about nuclear in the environmental space, you get canceled. I'm going up against that. And I'm hopeful because no one's done it before, you know, like the scientists tend to keep on the side, you know, not a lot of integration going on here. So I'm going to these younger people who actually don't tend to have old school environmentalist fears of nuclear, just take the facts to them, and then say, Are you going to get on board? If you're talking about climate action, and you're not standing for nuclear? Then you're standing for nothing. Yeah, that's the reality of it. Yeah, I helped to shift that debate, you know, now.

Bret Kugelmass
So you feel pretty confident people will go?

Zion Lights
Well, no, you're not an anti vaxxer? You know, I'm not a flat earther. And then I'm like, the anti nuclear, though. You know what, it's not that different. I love that.

Bret Kugelmass
That's great, loop in anti nuclear with flat earther. That's perfect. Radiation, radiation. That's amazing. Oh my god, I love it.

Zion Lights
No need to loop in, it's the truth. The absolute truth. So I've got a video coming out on exactly that, you'll be glad to know, it's quite well produced, as in well, I mean, it's not produced-produced, it's at home. It's good quality, and I think the ones that helped me edit it, it's just volunteers at the moment, we have got a bit of funding for stuff going on. I'm hoping more will come in, and we'll get donations from people mainly, like, so he's editing it to make it a bit more, you know, wow, in your face. But those are the messages that the messages are really worked on that script and honed it and what would I have responded to when I was anti nuclear, what do people need to hear? And what are the facts? Really straight up facts, not like messing around. And yeah, that's going to go live. So if any one of these, like the talks, and then I've got videos, any one of those kind of goes viral that's going to drive traction to the website.

Bret Kugelmass
That’s amazing.

Zion Lights
There's lots of stuff. There's so much, but the main thing is, Bret, the main thing, the reason why I'm hopeful is because I know that no one's ever done that in this space. So here all these engineers and activists, I hear a lot of stuff from them, like constantly, even just today, like someone on Twitter like pulling me and actually they'll often like older men who are engineers very like specific demographic. They're all well I've been saying this for years, I'm like you can say that, but no one like me has existed in this space before. So let's see.

Bret Kugelmass
Yeah, so I am actually curious about that. So here's something I've never understood. People go home. A lot of people go home, I don't know, like five or six. Like I work pretty late. But most people go home five or six. And then they've got what like five hours of like time on their hands. I guess. I guess most people watch TV. I understand watching TV or you know, Netflix or something, especially like when it's a great show. But what I never understood is, you've always got that garbage show that you know you shouldn't be watching. It's just a waste your time. It's just a total mental drain. Like why not replace that time of your day with like, getting hyped up about like doing something? Like write that letter in, send that banana! Like I guess what I'm asking is, is there a way to capture some of that time, even if it was only 1% of the population that spent their worst TV show time taking action? Like is it possible to get that?

Zion Lights
I mean, I think the reason people watch stuff like that it's because it's easy and they're exhausted. You know? I always said at Extinction Rebellion when we used to celebrate successes and say is it mainstream, you'll know when it's mainstream when it's on it. EastEnders, it's like one of the most widely watched programs here, it's just turn off Telly. It's a soap opera, I used to watch when I was a kid, it is very working class. It's still going, I don't watch it now. It used to be like, you sit, you eat, you know, when it's on, you know, this was normal when I was growing up in normally working households, and it is just kind of pap background. You know, it's just, yeah, I actually you say that about, you know, maybe feeling like a waste of time. But actually gossip is like an evolutionary thing, right? It is really important. So people do it used to brig the tribe together. And actually, isn't it better that you do it about make believe characters than your neighbors, though?

Bret Kugelmass
Yeah, that is true.

Zion Lights
So like I understand it serves a purpose. When you get your message on there, when someone talks about Chernobyl on there in a positive context - not in a positive context, in a truthful context - or about nuclear energy in a truthful context, you know, that you've actually just won the bet. And actually, they have talked about climate on there before, it was just not a thing. It was, you know, Extinction Rebellion helped to change that and they've have been around for two years. Not very long at all, you know, they both come on to the screen. And it was I worked in the groups, I saw that it was not a massive movement. It was, at its core, a very dedicated small movement with lots of volunteers. And that just spread around the world. And that model spread around the world. And they achieved a lot.

Bret Kugelmass
So that's what I'm thinking is like, how do you get a lot of volunteers because you can build a core very dedicated people, like you get to interact with a lot of people, you meet lots of people, you're going to be at universities, you're going to find people who just want to get involved because they feed off your energy, and what you're saying makes sense to them. And so I have no doubt you're going to get that core, then the question still, in my mind is how do you get a lot of volunteers? That's that's where I'm still-

Zion Lights
That interests me, the reason I'm at speaking climate groups is because I think it's those groups that need to be doing it, right? I think actually, this is something that's happened with Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for Future, and Greta, who have a lot of respect for, kind of stalled with their messaging, and their messaging is just stuck up at Act Now. Yeah, you know, it's kind of stalled, they don't lead, because Greta doesn't really lead people to solution. I'm actually, I'm sorry, but most politicians they need leading. They do not have scientific background, you know, they do need that lead, and they look at what's happening in society. So they look at, if all they see at Sizewell is lots of protests against it, then they're going to go, well, the news clippings are against it, let's definitely not do that. And that's actually the reality of what's happened. So we need people on the other side, standing for this climate solution. So I want to move it from that Act Now, which is literally a phrase that came from Extinction Rebellion, React Now. What are we actually going to do, because those tangible things that are going to ensure that my daughters have a decent future, you know, I don't have to tell them in 10 years that all their relatives in India had to migrate. We don't know where they are, you know, these are horrible stories that we would have true, completely true stories. There's people out there, rice farmers, my family and in the Punjab, their rice farmers and a little village outside of Mandi, no one knows where it is. It's nothing. Nobody has a wiki page. And they're already experiencing drought. You know, so often they're struggling, and my parents could send them money, what they're going to buy water, you know, I mean, like that, we're they going to go to Tesco? They don't have Tesco, it's four hours to the nearest airport, they don't have a Tesco, you know.

Bret Kugelmass
No, I know. I mean, this is what this is what I say when I give talks on climate, like, because at first maybe I came across as very alarmist. And I do think it's like a lot of bad stuff it's going to happen. But I don't think it's going to happen to the rich people. I think the rich are going to adapt and it's gonna happen, even if happens fast, like even if the climate totally transforms over 100 years, that is slow enough that the rich, the rich people will adapt to their lifestyles and not even know that they've adapted. But I'm worried about the poor people. That's right.

Zion Lights
There's a good good phrase for it, which is interesting, actually, because I think it happened with Extinction Rebellion in the start, they used to say we're all in the same boat. That was like one of the slogans and they got kind of pulled up I think actually by kind of the younger generation, which is we're not in the same boat. We're in the same storm. We're not in the same boat. That's something you don't often hear in the Green movement. That's what I'm bringing, you know, Emergency Reactor's gonna have that in its core messaging, like we completely recognize that and that's why I'm not really just saying my kids are gonna have a bad future actually think my kids apart from like eco anxiety which seems to be sweeping through in general you know, I think though going to be well provided for they're really lucky. And because I come from that poor background, I recognize how lucky they are and how much they have. I always say this to them. I think I sound like an old person, like what is she on about? We have enough food to eat and you know, we have a nice warm house, you know, think they have no idea.

Bret Kugelmass
Send them back to India for a summer.

Zion Lights
Well, it's sad isn't it sad, what's happening, and now they've got these farmers protests over what they're able to grow. And part of that is because it's harder to grow rice, it takes so much water.

Bret Kugelmass
And the suicides, too, I've heard something like 10s of 1000s, or some insane number of suicides from farmers that literally, because of drought just can't provide for their family. When I first heard that I lost it. Like I literally couldn't believe that was reality.

Zion Lights
It's horrible. It's really tough. But you think that already such a tough way to eke out a living, but at least you can get food, you know? And if you can't even do that, and what have you got? It's really terrible. But then I say to people, look, there are solutions. Salination, that could be a solution. But you know what you need loads of energy and loads of- every time I look at any solution, let's start with type of ending of the hypothesis, which is I want energy, every time I look at a problem, the solution tends to be lots of energy, abundant energy.

Bret Kugelmass
I know it's so funny, especially with the desalination argument, what people don't realize, I think it's something like, you know, when we desalinate water, like, I looked at the plant in San Diego or something, and if something like 50 cents per cubic meter, and I'm like, a cubic meter of water is a lot of water and 50 cents isn't that much money? So it's actually not even really a money question. It's an energy question.

Zion Lights
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And a whole other discussion, see, these are the things I'd like to be discussing on these debates. But we don't even get there, because we get stuck on this loop. Fukushima, Chernobyl, and you know, and then sometimes they move across from that to cost, or time, cost, build time. And I'm like, I'm just gonna bring some scissors here and just snip that loop. And let's not pass that loop on to younger generation. Dowdy, professor people, you know, that's why I want to go and talk to the students and just be like, just so you know, here are the facts, so that when you here the shouts of the other people over there, you might want to fact check it first.

Bret Kugelmass
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, well, as we wrap up here, I want to give you kind of like the final word on, you know, we usually like to wrap up with, you know, where you see things going in the future, if everything were to work out, we always like to end on an optimistic tone. So maybe like, look out 5, 10 years from here and just kind of like paint the picture of the world that you see.

Zion Lights
Paint a picture of the world that I see... We are building lots of new reactors. We don't have a 60% fossil fuel mix anymore. Where as close to zero as possible, or anything that's left over. We've got amazing carbon capture technology. That's I mean, really idealistic. I know, that's sucking it up so it's not a problem. And we stop- so in here, you know, it's very problematic, the whole issue is very problematic. But we've even funneled money out of aid, like aid money that we sent overseas into climate action, and I'm just like, no. So we're helping, we're helping, you know, other countries to get developed and to get what they need. I think that has to be part of it. Actually, let's just recognize that, you know, we kind of helped cause the problem. It's okay. Even if we didn't, it's okay to help them. You know, there's lots of people. Those numbers, you know, 10,-15 years, the numbers show that so many people have been lifted out of poverty. It's incredible news, you know, then I go to my daughters and I'm like, hey, news, I don't have to tell you really awful things and your cousins in India, they're doing great, you know, they don't have to cook on a little wood fire anymore. And your auntie gets medication for her asthma, so she's not likely to die from it any day soon. Because they now have a local hospital and then that will bring things out in the villages because no one wants to live there when there's no electricity. You know, I mean, these people bit by snakes for goodness sake, you know, they it's massive, actually, in the numbers of people that will die from snake bite, because there's no hospitals to deliver in the anti venom. It's not that it doesn't exist. It's just no access. Now I know, by the way, why my parents always wanted me to be a doctor. Indian parents always want you to be a doctor. Now I know why, over there, it's the difference between life and death. But that will change. They won't be saying that anymore, they'll be like, I want you to work at a nuclear plant. You know why? Because if you work at a nuclear power plant, you are a climate hero. You help to bring down emissions. That's what I want to see happen. In a nutshell.

Bret Kugelmass
Zion Lights. Thank you so much for taking time. This was so much fun talking with you, you get me more energized than anybody. So I cannot wait till our next conversation.

Zion Lights
Yes and also, emergencyreactor.org. Please go. please sign up. Take one little action today, you can help make a difference

Bret Kugelmass
Awesome.