Hey, Green Junkie!

Have you ever dove down the rabbit hole of climate change and came up for air more depressed and hopeless than you did before you dove in?

Sometimes it can feel really overwhelming to look at the state of our planet and all the action that needs to be taken in order to course correct. It can paralyze us so much that we end up doing nothing and taking zero steps in our journey – because what’s the point.

I think we can all relate to this feeling, so today I brought on Ariel Maldonado to talk to us about climate optimism and how we can take collective climate action to improve the state of our planet.

She is a ray of sunshine and a breath of fresh air in this space, and I can’t wait to share her with you. 

You won’t want to miss this episode where we discuss,

• How Go Green Save Green came to be.
• The importance of mixing humor and seriousness when educating on sustainability practices.
• How to have hard conversations around climate change.
• What is climate optimism and why is it important?
• The importance of collective action?
• How you can engage in collection action in your community.

You’ll discover that and so much more in this episode.

If you love this podcast be sure to leave a review and share a screenshot of this episode to your IG stories. Tag @thisisstephaniemoram so I can shout you out and publicly say thanks. 

Thanks for listening and being here.

Your green bestie,

Xoxo Stephanie

Hang With Jessie:

https://www.instagram.com/gogreensavegreen/

Previous Episodes Mentioned:

#28: Environmental Justice and Veganism with Isaias Hernandez

#27. Eco-Guilt – Just Drop it

#24. What is Greenwashing?

Snag 1 on 1 Sustainability Consulting with Stephanie

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Join me on LinkedIn

Produced by: Alecia Harris

Music By: Liz Fohle

LISTEN BELOW

TRANSCRIPT FOR EPISODE 45

Stephanie Moram 0:07
Hi, Green Junkie. I'm your host Stephanie Moram and today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Ariel Maldonado. I am so excited to speak with her. She is the founder and owner of the Instagram page called Go Green Save Green, a climate focused meme page that uses memes to talk about all elements of the climate movement. She's been finding a variety of ways to use memes to break down climate science, share collective experiences, and share climate news and solutions that are happening in the world. If you love learning new ways you can reduce your impact on the environment, please subscribe to the Green Junkie podcast on whatever platform you get your podcasts. That way you never miss another green living episode. Hi, Ariel, thank you so much for being here.

Ariel Maldonado 0:57
Hi, how are you?

Stephanie Moram 0:59
I'm good. I'm happy to have this conversation with you today. So I would love for you to just start off by telling us a little bit about you, and how you kind of started on your sustainability journey.

Ariel Maldonado 1:13
Yeah, so I live in California. I'm in my mid 20s. Now when I started the page, I was, I think 22. My background is actually not in climate science or anything like that. It wasn't really on my radar until like 2017 / 2018. And I just started watching all these like Ajay plus videos, and it kind of stuck. My background is actually in artistry. So yeah, I do ceramics. That's what I got my actual degree in. I teach pottery. On the side, I work for an environmental problem nonprofit as like my main job and currently outside on pottery. I'm focused on rug tufting, like making rugs.

Stephanie Moram 1:54
Oh, cool.

Ariel Maldonado 1:55
Yeah.

Stephanie Moram 1:55
So that's cool. I didn't know all of that about you. That's super cool that you're an artist and doing pottery. I love that. So you started your Instagram page? And was there something specific that you were like, I need to start an Instagram page, I need to start telling everybody, everything that's in my brain right now? I need to start sharing, you know, on climate change and all that? Was there something very specific that sparked you to to start that?

Ariel Maldonado 2:22
No, I would say that it was more like a snowball effect. And it was just something that started kind of rolling around in my head. Like I mentioned earlier, I started seeing kind of like these ajay plus now videos, I started reading more about it, I started personally getting worried about it. And I realized that none of my friends were really talking about it or into it. And in retrospect, when I look back at a little bit of like the history of who I am, when I was you know, like 13 / 14 or whatever. And I had, you know, a Yahoo account and like, you go to Yahoo, they have all those like articles there. I usually call it my friends and be like, Wow, look at this article that I read. And I feel like Go Green Save Green is like the adult version extension of me like calling up a friend and sharing them an article that I found. But no, originally, it started out as an Instagram because I was incredibly shy. And I didn't think that anybody was going to take me seriously – when I started the the page. At the time, it was a lot of zero waste suburban moms that were in the green space. And that's what kind of dominated like it was very zero waste at the time and stuff like that. And, I mean, I was a super broke college student so I couldn't really apply any of the tips or content that they were putting into my own life. And so I wanted to just start sharing information and start focus on like little things that people could do. And I didn't show my face or let anybody know who I was for a long time. I think it wasn't until I was around 10k that I started telling people in my life like I run this page just because I was so shy and I was actually occurred somebody mentioned to me before I started the page, like only about three or four people knew that I had started the page and one of them was like well what if you did a YouTube channel and it was a hard No, I was like absolutely not. The Instagram I was able to stay really anonymous because it was all suburban moms I was like nobody's gonna listen to like this this Mexican college girl from California and so far I've been proven wrong people do care what I have to say.

Stephanie Moram 4:17
They definitely care what you have to say definitely definitely definitely. So you said you shared like Yahoo article so you also the friend that would like text a bunch of people like memes and stuff. Because like your whole Instagram is like you said you like share memes with people. That's what you do mostly on your Instagram. So before you started your Instagram, were you that person that was also sharing, you know, funny stuff as well.

Ariel Maldonado 4:44
Yeah, but I wouldn't say like more than the average person. Like I would say that, I think that if you asked anybody in my life prior to me starting the page, could you like envision this? Respectfully, if anyone I know hears this, I think everybody would have said no. Even I would have said no, you know, so like, I'm not upset. I think that I was definitely came out of left field and it was definitely something that surprised me and all the people around me.

Stephanie Moram 5:12
Yeah. And what kind of do you try when you're sharing on Instagram? Do you try to keep it light and fluffy, not necessarily fluffy but light and humorous? Or do you kind of do a mix of everything where, you know, you're being a little bit more serious with the graphics or sharing versus like, sometimes it might be something a little bit funnier.

Ariel Maldonado 5:31
I definitely mix it with more serious things, I have definitely come to like, the conclusion that there needs to be room for both enjoyment and acknowledgement of like how serious the situation is, if we don't acknowledge how serious the situation of climate change is, and like address root causes and talk about things that make us uncomfortable, I genuinely don't think we can solve it. But at the same time, if the only thing we talk about is like how bad everything is, people are not going to engage people are going to disengage. So I think it's really important to have hard conversations, but also make it as enjoyable space as possible so that people are more open and willing to hear various perspectives that they might not have considered previously.

Stephanie Moram 6:20
And that's what I kind of like about your Instagram, is it's kind of people having conversations, it's not just you necessarily telling people what to do. But hey, did you think about this, and they are a harder conversation. So you know, my Instagram is completely different from yours in the sense of like, I'm kind of just like trying to get the needle moving at the bottom, where you're kind of like at the other end going, Hey, guys, hello, are you gonna wake up or not? Like there's a grace is right now. And that's why I do like your Instagram, because you're having those harder conversations that other people don't have. And if people don't want to have those conversations, then you probably shouldn't be on your Instagram.

Ariel Maldonado 7:00
Yeah, definitely. And I also try, I want to say it was probably I mean, being here in the US, like, I want to say a real turning pivoting moment for me. And deciding how I communicate with people that disagree with me was definitely during like all the BLM protests of 2020. Me being one person. Luckily, I can just kind of pivot conversation and what I talk about at any given moment, I'm not beholden to any organization, or company or brand or anything like that. So at that time, there was just so much confusion and information and like so many feelings, and it was just so much like happening here. And I was talking about a lot of those issues. And I realized that certain point, like, it was obviously like a very lightning rod issue. And so people were disagreeing with things that I was putting out there. And at a certain point, I had to sit down and ask myself, like, is it more important for me to have a little quip that like people online? I'm gonna get like, points of nothing? Or is it more important for me to like actually reassess how I communicate with people who either aren't understanding, or they've never been? Whether it's like, willfully misunderstanding, or they just don't agree? Like, it kind of clicked to me, like, having hard conversations does have serious impact. And so after that, I started not having as many little like clap backs, and I started trying to genuinely engage people in question people and like, even when, you know, they're being difficult and annoying, remain respectful and have those conversations. And I think so far it's paid off. And I've definitely tried to talk to other people in the creative space of like, when you come across a troll, or when you come across somebody who, you know, is not houses, you just come across somebody really annoying, and they're just like, kind of commenting on your page constantly, you know, like, at a certain point, you know, I my bigger goal is to actually get them engaged in listening and open to whatever I'm saying, than it is for me to just like shut them down.

Stephanie Moram 8:55
Right, I get it. And I think sometimes, when you're having those conversations, sometimes shutting it down might be the only solution because it's just not stopping. And you're going to just agree to disagree the whole time. But then there are other times where you're going to start these conversations, and you can have those respectful conversations. I've had respectful conversations on the internet, and we don't agree with things and when I say we, I don't mean you, like other people. And then there's other times when I have people just sending me these horrible messages. Like I don't even remember what it just what these messages are. And they're just like attacking me because I'm telling people that you don't have to be perfect. You know what I mean? Like my biggest thing is I don't for me personally, when it comes to this space, if you're just getting started in the sustainability journey, people get so like deer in the headlights were like, I have to do all the things and I love to explain to you don't have to do all the things at one time, like work your way to it. And I just had someone rip me a new butthole telling me that people should be perfect and did it. I was just like, hey, we're not going to agree on this. I'm just going to shut down the conversation like I tried. To explain my point, but I get how you have bigger conversation sometimes. And your mission is to not necessarily change people's ideas, but just be open to other points of view. Which Yeah, and that's why I like your Instagram.

Ariel Maldonado 10:15
Yeah. And I would also say like, sometimes, you know, these points that people come to me and my comments there, they don't exist in a vacuum. Like, I know that these disagreements are things that my followers are listening to people say in their day to day life. So I also hope that when they're watching me interact with them, and they're watching the arguments and points that I'm bringing up to this person that they can then implement that to family members, friends, neighbors, co workers, whatever in their own lives, and they can kind of use it as like a. Okay, this is kind of what I saw how this topic was approached. And this is like, how I can approach it.

Stephanie Moram 10:49
Yeah, definitely. And so I know, like, You talk a lot about climate change. That's like one of your biggest focuses. So I know, you also talked about like climate optimism. So what is that? Exactly? Because I know what I would say it is, but because you know, like in the green space, sometimes it's like, it's heavy, and it's dark, and people feel the Eco guilt and stuff like that. So what do you what is climate optimism for you?

Ariel Maldonado 11:13
Yeah, climate optimism is first and foremost, the belief that the world isn't going to just fall off one day, it's the belief that people can come together and that they can, you know, solve these issues. Me personally, don't get me wrong, I am worried about the impacts of climate change. Because even if we were to snap our fingers today and solve everything, we're still going to feel some of the effects and like those effects, they do worry me. But as far as like solving climate change, I genuinely believe that we can solve it. What scares me more, is like the political world because I know that we have the solutions and that they exist. I think what lacks more in a lot of countries, not just the US, is aggressive political will to tackle it. So I hope that climate optimism through climate optimism, if people understand that solutions exist, that they are more willing to push an advocate for them. Recently, I've kind of come to the come around to the idea that like, my page has evolved a lot. And in the beginning, it was very, like, this is what you can do as an individual. And then, you know, eventually it started tackling like root issues, and capitalism, colonialism and all these other things. And then, you know, when the Amazon fires were happening during like, the pandemic, and stuff, I was like, Oh, my God, or like, right before the pandemic, I was like, Oh, my God, like, nobody is paying attention to this, nobody's like this isn't being reported. So I started sharing that. And then at a certain point, in the last two years, the news kind of went from like, nobody's talking about this, too, we're gonna hyper focus on everything that is going wrong and bad. And I realized that there was a lot less, there is a lot less emphasis on the fact that solutions exist. And we have answers to some of these problems. And it can be really frustrating when, you know, I see like news articles that share an issue that I know that a solution already exists for. And in that article, they don't address that. And so then people get these feelings of like, well, we have all these problems, and nobody's working on it. And I really wish that people could tell people like, Well, we do have people working on it. And the fact that you know that this is a problem is like a sign that people are working on it. And we've done more than just identify the problem, we're actually have solutions, but at the same time, like with climate optimism, you can only demand what you know. And if you don't know that solutions are out there, it's really going to be hard for you to be optimistic. So you know, I'm kind of at a point where I no longer just want to educate people about like, the bad stuff. But also like, these are the things that we should be demanding for.

Stephanie Moram 13:43
Right. And I think that's, you know, like, going back to what we're talking about the beginning was like having those hard conversations, but it doesn't always have to be like doomsday. Yeah, right. And having like, those positive conversations, like, Hey, this is what's going on. And these are some solutions that can be implemented over the next year, or this next six months, or this or that. So people are more optimistic on what's going on versus the world's gonna implode in like, a month. Yeah, what I mean, not that it is but you know, and I think it's important, you know, like, there's a lot of people that have so much ego guilt, like the, you know, like on the other extreme of like, I can't bring my own reusable containers. I'm throwing stuff in the trash, like, you know, the small, like smaller things that do add up over time, but like to bring people to, it's okay. You made put one thing in the trash. It's not the end of the world, like we're all going to be okay. And just being a little bit more optimistic about the outcome. Because I think if we're always looking at the dark side, because there are a lot of people that it's dark all the time, and to live in that energy in that space all the time. It must be really heavy. Yeah. And so by you kind of just saying, hey, a lot of bad crap is happening look, but showing like, the opposite, like the optimistic side, I think balances those things out a lot more and people can feel better.

Ariel Maldonado 15:12
Yeah, yeah. You know, I think I wanted her to saying that really resonated with me is like, the way that choirs work is that if somebody needs to take a breather, someone can take a breather, and the rest of the choir is going to, you know, not come to a halt, they're going to carry the sound and the singing, and like everyone can take a break as needed. And I feel like that's similar with the climate movement.

Stephanie Moram 15:35
Yeah, and you talking about climate optimism moving on to like engaging in collective action. So you talked about before, like engaging and doing stuff to like help the climate to help the environment? What do you mean by engaging in collective action? Like, how do you see that helping the climate?

Ariel Maldonado 15:53
Yeah, so for a long time, there was kind of like, and I think there is still a little bit to a degree, but it's kind of fading out a lot of the conversation focused on like, individual action versus like, corporate action. And you know, some people are like, I need to, you know, do what I can, because I'm a member of this earth, and, you know, I can lessen my footprint and other people are like, Why do you need to worry about yourself when Coca Cola is polluting more than your entire family ever could in their lifetimes? For a long time, I for a short time, I kind of was like, Oh, these two sides makes sense. And then pretty quickly, I kind of came to the realization that like, they're both two sides of the same coin. And you can't have one without the other. So when I'm talking about collective action, like, I was really funny, just talking to a friend about this, I got one of my friends into composting. And his boyfriend was like, Oh, I don't know how I feel about this. Because Verma composting is composting with worms in his apartment, and I've been composting with worms for years. And I told him like, no, it's totally fine. You know, like, you know, uh, he wants to help his, you know, environmental footprint out, and like, composting is a really great way to reduce how much methane is going into landfills, and this and that, and he's just, like, not really into it. And he was like, oh, you know, like, I, I think I'm more on the side of like, demanding that like Exxon Mobil changes. And I'm like, Yeah, but who do you think are the people that are demanding that Exxon changes, it's the people that as an individual care about sustainability, it's not the people that are like brushing off responsibility to those like corporations. So I think that, like individual action is like a great starting point that feeds into collective action. If you are at work, you're more likely to try to implement changes on a work place scale, if you get care about this stuff at home, if you don't care about, you know, sustainability at home, you're not going to just be at work, you know, and start caring about sustainability at 9am. You know, collective action also doesn't only have to enter the workplace, you know, it can apply to change jobs, and like, move into the sustainable space is like a career, there's like a ton of careers, and that it's also like volunteering your time with mutual aid. It's also you know, getting involved with nonprofit organizations, it's also like, you know, just getting with other people and working on things, even if you can't solve everything on a massive scale, even if you can only solve a very small problem in your community, like, do it but it just is, it's the idea that you basically meet up with at minimum one other person, and you guys come together to like address something, no matter how small because those those like ideas, and those, you know, sentiments, they snowball, and you're gonna get a lot further than if you just kind of kept passing the ball to Coca Cola.

Stephanie Moram 18:42
Right. And I 100% agree with you. Because often we say, you know, the big companies are going to have the biggest impact, right? So if a big company compost versus just me, obviously, the big company is going to have a bigger impact because they're composting on a much bigger scale. But if we all thought that way, and no one composted, then you know what I mean, but if everyone started slowly composting, our footprint can be big. Right? And I agree with, with what you said, you're your friend, like, Yes, I agree that a big company needs to take action and do certain things to help the climate. But if you just brush off the fact that like, oh, well, I'm not going to compost because it's the it's the big companies that you know, need to make change for this to be turned around. Yeah, to some degree. Yes. But we all have to take some responsibility for the direction our planet is going in, right? Yeah, just be like, Oh, well, I'm gonna have like, you know, no impact. And there's like that. What is that saying that, that that proverb that's like, it's both the both the mosquito and going blank right now, but if you don't think you can make an impact because you're too small. You've never been in bed with a mosquito, right? Like, it's so small changes that I feel make a difference. And, you know, the more people that compost you know, hopefully companies will see that no matter how has been has his own company and he wants to have more sustainability within his company. And he's like, we need to do like a trash pickup, like, we need to get everyone together, you know, take the afternoon off from work, and we're gonna go to the park and pick up trash. And I think it's doing stuff like that. Is he coke as big as Coca Cola? No, but he is a rather large company, and, you know, taking his you know, 50 employees to go walk in the park and pick up trash is gonna have an impact more so than if just Stephanie here walked in the park and pick up trash.

Ariel Maldonado 20:30
Yeah, exactly. And even if you're like, well, that doesn't matter. It's just a park, to the other living organisms beyond humans, you know, sometimes we are very human centrically focused. Like, it's going to matter to those animals to those pollinators to the squirrels to whatever's in that park, you know,

Stephanie Moram 20:45
Like, it's picking up the trash. So like, what are some examples of engaging in, in, in collective action? So like, what are things that you recommend people to do, you know, as individuals, like, I can't make a big difference. What do you recommend, like picking up trash? What are other things that people can do? Come together, like, either with their friend or maybe their community or a handful of people? What are things that people can do to like, move that needle forward? When it comes to climate change?

Ariel Maldonado 21:13
Yeah, I think one of my favorite ones is definitely like rewilding, and like, seed bombing, you know, researching, not just buying seeds from like a big box apartment or gardening store. Because you have to like research, what kinds of plants are like native to whatever area you live in. Native plants are really great for that. I think that's a really great way it also community gardens, you know, helping grow either food gardens and a community urban gardens, also, who there's so many. Oh, even just like going into, you know, hikes collectively, and like, giving others the opportunity that don't get as much outdoor, and hiking time giving people equal access to the outdoors, doing things to help tackle food deserts. So, you know, that includes like, having get togethers where you guys are making healthier food options, educating each other about healthier foods, educating each other about like how easy it can be, or being like mindful of any, like diets or anything like that, you know, mutual aid efforts as well, things like feeding the homeless, or, you know, things like fixing up people's bikes, you know, I think you sometimes see that at festivals, like people will be really kind and be like, bring your bike over here. And like, we'll fix it for you, you know, bikes are a great way to lessen your dependence on a car centric infrastructure. And so I think, yeah, anything that can kind of help people improve their environment a little bit. And if you do it just with others, because collective action, some collect some things you can only tackle like, with others, but there are other things that you can do, by yourself and with others. So you don't necessarily have to be like, do you want to do this as me. You can also test out the waters first, get a sense of it, and then be like, Oh, I would like to bring other people with me.

And it could be you know, you're talking about composting before it could even be something like you want to compost and you have like five other friends that want to compost, but maybe not all of you have the means to compost. You know, for backyard, you don't want to worm compost and one friend has a backyard. And they have space for garden. It can be that you come together and you all compost together. But then it's just not that one, that one friend that's taking care of the compost. It's like, you know, every day or whatever amount of time that you need to like turn over the soil for the compost, you know, each take your turn to work together to collectively, compost. Yeah, it could be something like that. And when I lived in the United States for a little while with my husband and I wanted to compost like I really wanted to compost. But wherever we lived, there was not a backyard. And it just there wasn't like curbside pickup for composting anywhere that we lived. So I found solutions. And one was, there was a farmer that we would see every single week in Pennsylvania at the farmers market. I will begin but my husband would eat meat. So we would you know, pick up grass fed meat, and he had vegetables and all that kind of stuff. And one day just said to him like, like, would you take my compost? He's like, absolutely. So we had two bins, and I would fill up a little bit of compost, bring it to the farmers market. He'd give me an empty one. So yes, it's just the two of us. But collectively, like I had something that he needed first chickens, maybe defeated chickens. He wanted compost, I wanted to compost. So we came together and I was able to give him that. And then another time was another farm. And they had like he sold diesel but he made his own diesel I would fill up my car with it, basically with vegetable oil. And I would like drop my compost over there and we lived in another part but it was like even just doing that you're like collectively working together because you're making change. You're not just trying to do it by yourself. And then often other people see what you're doing right? Like, people are following you on Instagram and they're like, oh, wow, look what Ariel's doing. Oh my gosh, like I need to try this. So I think it's awesome what you're doing and I think it's awesome. On the engage in collective action, because other people will see what you're doing, right? If you're picking up trash, how many like I've picked up trash and people like, Oh, that's such a good idea. I should really pick up trash like, Yeah, you should go get a bag, you'll pick up trash. So I'm not doing it by myself.

Yeah, agreed with everything you just said,

Stephanie Moram 25:22
What type of things like you talked about things that people can do? Is there something that when you're talking about engaging in collective action? Is there a one thing that you always do that you like? Want to get your friends together that once a month you do this action? Is there something that you always do like as a group?

Ariel Maldonado 25:38
Personally, no, because we're still kind of like, up and down with the pandemic. And I haven't seen on many people and often and going a little bit Cabin Fever, worry, but I'm working with my my day job is a environmental nonprofit called the Climate Initiative. And we're actually I'm helping build up a volunteer organization for like young people, like I'm working from the ground up. So yeah, it's kind of fun, because they're, we're trying to create monthly events. And right now, some of the stuff that I'm focusing on that are kind of be reoccurring is my favorite is composting because I don't think people realize how important and how simple it is. And like it can be just done on no matter what your living situation is. I have a tiny, tiny one bedroom apartment. So you know, people always told me I have no space. And I'm like, neither do I. So I speak from experience like this is possible. Other things that I'm trying to do through that organization is get into like emergency preparedness. You know, I think a lot of people think of emergency preparedness as like, you know, I'm just gonna go run off into a bunker and just fade out whatever thing is happening at that time, nema scenario, but you know, we're seeing more. Our reality is becoming that like we're being impacted more by wildfires, hurricanes, snowstorms, everything, right. And so one of the things that I think people also don't think of is like, thinking ahead and thinking about what are the things that I would need in case of evacuation where things I would need in case of stuck inside, you know, so that's definitely something that I'm also like, very interested in, because whether you're prepared or not, has a huge determination on like, how you are after a giant event. So definitely something I'm more interested in tackling and talking about more, especially to this organization, and probably on my page as well.

Stephanie Moram 27:25
I know, that's such a great idea, like, climate is obviously affecting us on so many different levels and being prepared. And it doesn't mean that you have to, like, you know, can stuff that's gonna last for two years. It's just like, you know, minimally being prepared. Do you have batteries for a flashlight? You know what I mean? Like, you'd be surprised how many people don't have flashlights or batteries, right? Do you have matches to start a fire? If you need to start a fire? Do you like just even small things, I think are important for people to be prepared. It doesn't have to be as extreme as I need to have, you know, dried food and everything has to be canned. And they spent four days canning. So I have tomatoes for like five years. Oh, I totally can be that it can be right if you choose to. But I think it's also just, I think it's being mindful. And just noticing how things are changing around us.

Ariel Maldonado 28:16
Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, you know, definitely like for me, as I think about these things, it's kind of interesting to see like intersections of like how zero waste can actually or like, maybe not zero waste or low waste living actually does have some crossover with emergency prep. Because a lot of people in the emergency prep, they just buy like disposable versions of things. But there's actually a lot of things that you can do, right, like in an emergency prep bag, a lot of women are like, oh pads tampons, I haven't mentioned a cup of mine. Because I'm pretty sure that if I'm running out the door, I'm in earthquake country. So if I'm running out the door with an earthquake, I'm not going to be like, let me grab my menstrual cup, you know, simultaneously, my apartment falls down, I'm on the second floor, like pads are only gonna last me so long, you know. So there's definitely some cool things and like, I even have a solar power generator, which is super awesome. It's like, silent, it doesn't you know, make noise always same way like gas ones do obviously doesn't rely on gas. And I totally recommend people look into rocket stoves as opposed to like those little butane camping stoves, a rocket stove.

Stephanie Moram 29:20
What's a rocket stove?

Ariel Maldonado 29:21
A rocket stove is like it's like a little box. So there's like different iterations. There's some that are like really heavy and that like, are like 100 pounds. And it's like a giant pipe that looks like a J like literally like a huge like a like water piping or something like that. It's really thick and big. And it looks like a J and essentially on the shorter part of the j you put in wood or whatever fuel you're using. And then at the bottom of the j where it kind of loops is where that fire will be headed. And then the shoot up that top part of the letter J is where like the fire and heat goes up and it's super super fuel efficient. And because of the way that it's like set up I guess it doesn't release like smoke and stuff. like that, however, there are smaller ones that you can just fold up that are like really tiny. It's like four pieces of metal and almost looks like a little box. And it's a similar concept, you just put it in and it kind of like creates the fire there. And the reason I recommend people you get those is because during emergencies, people are always fighting over like, resources. And that includes propane, and butane and all that stuff. So for me, it's like, well, you know, seeing how people were going over toilet paper, I really don't want to I don't see myself as somebody who's going to like punch somebody over candy propane, I'm going to be like, here's their take it. So one of the great things about rocket stoves is that like, you know, it's probably going to be a lot more likely that I have access to like sticks and wood and bark and leaves, you know, and those are things that can like, burn, no matter where I am.

Stephanie Moram 30:45
That was funny. I'm not going to punch somebody. Yeah, and you can like, probably put it somewhere people aren't going to know what it is. They're not even going to try to take it from you.

Ariel Maldonado 30:57
Correct. They're really small. And like mine is probably it's thinner than an iPad once it's like disassembled so they are literally like really thin pieces of metal. It's like a little box. Like I said, You assemble it really quickly. People also take them camping. They're not only for emergency, they're really nifty. I bought two just because I was like, Well, you know, one thing I know I'll need is water. The other thing I don't need is food. And if I only have one, then I can only boil water or cook food. And I don't want to skimp out on boiling water because I'm really hungry. You know. So?

Stephanie Moram 31:30
Yeah. And what is it called a rocket?

Ariel Maldonado 31:33
A rocket stove?

Stephanie Moram 31:34
Oh, rocket stove. Yeah, I'll google that after a little things. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing all your wisdom and all your information. I really do appreciate it. Can you again, tell people where they can find you on social media?

Ariel Maldonado 31:53
Yeah, so I'm just on Instagram. So it's just Go Green Save Green. I'm very friendly. I if you're a student listening to this, I love when students come into my DMs and asked me if they can use my memes or if they, you know, I've had everyone from high school students to people getting like their PhDs be like, can I either use a meme? Or can I talk to you for you know, my research thesis about climate and how people talk about it and stuff like that. So if you need me for school, I love to make myself available in whatever way that is.

Stephanie Moram 32:24
Oh, that's awesome. So thanks again for being on. I really do appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. If you are looking for more green inspiration, I have a couple of other episodes that you can listen to number 28 environmental justice and veganism. Number 27 is all about eco guilt. And number 24 is all about what is green washing. So those are a couple of other episodes you can listen to. You can stay connected with me on Instagram at Green junkie podcast also at this is Stephanie moram. And don't forget to subscribe to the green junkie podcast on whatever platform you're listening on. Stay connected with me on Instagram at this is Stephanie moram. And don't forget to subscribe to the green junkie podcast on your favorite platform. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you next Tuesday Green Junkie.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai