In this episode, you’ll learn about an incredibly relevant topic: the connection between art, creativity, and climate change.

Today, host Scott “Sourdough” Power highlights the staggering impact of recent climate disasters on creative communities in Los Angeles and Asheville, North Carolina. When Hurricane Helene swept through Western North Carolina last September, it displaced hundreds of artists and flattened key creative spaces across 25 counties. As Scott explores the history of climate disaster, he also tackles the common but false belief that some places, like the Appalachian Mountains, are safe from its impacts. It’s a stark reminder that climate change doesn’t play favorites—it affects everyone, regardless of background.

Our conversation also touches on the Palisades and Eaton fires, two of the deadliest and most destructive wildfires in California history. An Angeleno himself, Scott witnessed firsthand how a trifecta of fire-friendly climate conditions turned entire neighborhoods into heaps of ash and soot this past January. 

While he stresses the importance of moving from passive observation to active engagement, Scott also celebrates the resilience of these communities in overcoming challenges through creativity. Ultimately, this episode emphasizes that creativity isn’t just about reflecting what’s happening around us; it’s also a powerful way to imagine and work towards a more sustainable future.

ArtsvilleUSA

First Friday Exhibitions

NOT REAL ART

NOT REAL ART School

Remote: A Video Series Exploring Public Art

Scott “Sourdough” Power

For more information, please visit https://notrealart.com/creativity-and-climate-change

The Not Real Art podcast is intended for creative audiences only.

The Not Real Art podcast celebrates creativity and creative culture worldwide.

It contains material that is fresh, fun and inspiring and is not suitable for boring old art snobs.

Now let's get started and enjoy the show.

Greetings and salutations, my creative brothers and sisters.

Welcome to Not Real Art, the podcast where we talk to the world's most creative people.

I'm your host, faithful, trusty, loyal, tireless, relentless host.

Sourdough coming at you from Crew West Studio in Los Angeles today.

Today we have an auditorial for you.

Last week of every month, I drop an auditorial, something that's on my mind.

Today I'm going to talk about climate change.

Today I'm talking about what the fuck are we doing to this planet.

And by the way, the numb countless artists, let alone humans that are being impacted.

And we here at Crew West Studio and not Relart have a unique perspective because we're here in L.

A.

The fires just kicked our ass and we're in Asheville, North Carolina, and Hurricane Helene kicked our ass there.

And so I want to talk about climate change today.

But before I get into it, I want to thank you for tuning in.

We do this for you.

It's all about you.

Without you will just be me.

And that would be sad because I'd be lonely.

So thank you for showing up.

We appreciate your loyalty as always.

Before I get into this, I want to encourage you to go to notrelart.com and check out all the good healthy stuff we got for you.

They're free range, organic, no preservatives, no additives, no chemicals.

It's all there.

You're going to discover amazing artists and incredible art.

You could check out our first Friday's exhibitions, check out our recent grant winners, check out Remote series by Badir McCleary, on and on.

There's so much great stuff for you.

Be sure to check out not Real art, the not real art school.

We've just added a bunch of new educational content free of charge so that you could get smarter, you could get stronger, you could get bigger, better in your practice, in your life.

So please go to Naral Art School, School of Notrellar, the Narl Art School, all free right there@naralart.com.

go check it out.

So thanks for showing up, people.

Really glad that you're here today.

As I said, I want to talk about climate change.

You may or may not know this, but we here at Nautilart.

This show is developed and produced by Crew West Studio, which is my company.

And we focus on helping artists tell their stories and promote their work.

We develop and produce, obviously, lots of podcasts.

We develop and produce TV shows and documentaries.

We publish books and blogs, and we do events for artists.

And over the years, we've developed a brand called Artsville, Artsville USA.

Artsvilleusa.com Please check it out.

We celebrate American contemporary arts and crafts, specifically from western North Carolina, specifically from Asheville, North Carolina.

And so Artsville USA is very special to us.

And if you, if you haven't checked it out, please do.

But over the years, we've done more and more business in western North Carolina, and we've gotten to know the amazing artists there and amazing human beings that are making contemporary craft there in western North Carolina, from Asheville all the way up to Penland School of Craft and, and the 23 counties that, that, that that comprise western North Carolina.

It's a sort of an art region and it's a special place, singular place that I just love.

And as you might have heard, Hurricane Helene kicked its ass last fall, the September 27th, actually, on Friday, Hurricane Helene blew in and kicked western North Carolina's ass to the sum of 59.6 billion is the current estimate of damage there.

And, you know, people died, 100 confirmed deaths in North Carolina there.

And it was just horrific.

It was horrific for all kinds of reasons.

The topography and the geography of the land made a horrible storm that much worse.

They had got a bunch of rain prior to the hurricane, and then the hurricane came in and soaked an already soaked region.

And because of the landscape in the hills and the rivers and the, in the, and the way the, the watershed is there, it just flooded, flooded areas and of course, flooded Asheville, North Carolina, and the River Arts District, the place I been to many times and loved dearly and just wiped out, washed away.

Literally washed away.

Over 600 artists were displaced from the River Arts District, all of their life's work.

Many artists lost their life's work, lost their, their, their studios, lost their businesses and, and that's just in Asheville.

If you, if you look more broadly to the western North Carolina region, the 23 counties there, you know, potentially, you know, a couple thousand artists that were just completely displaced and wiped off the map.

That area is very rural.

It's very.

A lot of artists that live and work there, of course, want to live there because they want to be off the grid, so to speak.

They want to live, you know, on the mountainside, down the dirt road, you know, this beautiful landscape.

And by the way, I've been there.

It's absolutely stunningly beautiful.

And so it made search and rescue and recovery very difficult.

This landscape, this, this rugged landscape.

In many of those areas, a lot of people were cut off, a lot of people were, were devastated because they couldn't access communications and utilities.

And I mean, the place was without fresh water for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks.

And it just was complete, epic, biblical, almost sort of natural, called natural catastrophe.

And of course, part of what made it so horrific was that people lived there in part because they thought that part of the world was impervious to climate change.

In fact, that's been the kind of the conventional wisdom over the years about that part of the country, that if you moved to Asheville or lived in western North Carolina, that climate change was not really going to impact you or impact that area very much.

And so people have flocked there over the years, retirees and artists alike, to live there, thinking that maybe, just maybe they would live in an area that would be safe from climate change.

Well, obviously, when the climate is changing, the climate is everywhere.

Well, then I guess the climate changes everywhere and western North Carolina is no exception.

And of course they got their ass kicked by Mother Nature.

And I think personally that it's a historic event on multiple levels, not the least of which is, I don't know that there's been so many artists displaced at once.

You know, six, like I said, 600 artists alone resided in the River Arts District there, aka the radio in Asheville.

And all of those artists were wiped out.

And, you know, I don't know that that's ever happened in the history of the art making.

Have there ever been 600 artists living in a densely populated area, in a singular area, to be wiped out at once?

I don't know.

I don't think so.

I'd be, I bet against it.

So I think that this is first of its kind in terms of wiping out so many artists at once.

And of course, wasn't the artist's fault, right?

It was the impact of climate change.

It was the impact of 8 billion people on the planet raking havoc to our planet, not giving a fuck about man's impact.

And, you know, I'm going to talk a little bit more about that.

And so of course, the.

So many artists I know do care.

So many people I know care.

I care about to stay the planet and try to do what I can to not make a mess and keep, keep my room clean, as it were, like mom used to say and, but still, when governments and big companies refuse to be change agents, you know, it doesn't matter what you and I do really, because it's going to take a global effort, both by governments and business alike, to really make long lasting, impactful change.

And so here we are, here we are with a changing climate and we are impacted.

In spite of our best efforts to live in a sustainable way, we still are impacted because of course powers, the powers that be that perhaps, you know, are, you know, care less, they don't care.

And so, you know, we are where we are.

I mean Al Gore and the Inconvenient Truth years ago warned of this.

This is not like we didn't know this was happening.

We were warned, we were told that we didn't give a fuck.

So here we are.

And poor, poor, poor people in western North Carolina were wiped down.

By the way.

Let's, let's be honest, climate change impacts the poorest among us, right?

I mean the rich, they can get on their yachts and their planes and sail away and fly away, but those of us left behind, of course are left picking up the pieces.

And so climate change, Hurricane Helene specifically wreaked havoc and devastation to some 59, almost $60 billion in Western North Carolina.

So my heart goes out to all those artists that we know in western North Carolina.

Uh, we've been covering the story and been doing our best to sort of help shine a light on these artists and on these stories on our western our blog, Artsville USA artsville USA.com please check it out.

Early January, Tuesday, January 7th, a fire broke out in the Palisades, the so called Palisades fire.

And within minutes, within a couple of hours it was raging so much to the, to the point that 23,400 acres burned in the Palisades fire alone.

Seven fires ravaged LA over the course of a couple of weeks here.

The fires were, are now officially out as of January 27th.

You know we had rains and the heroic efforts of all the firefighters and strike teams and aircraft and the incredible first responders over the course of the last three, four weeks have managed to finally put out the Palisades Fire, the Eaton Fire, the Hearst Fire, the Lydia Fire, the Kenneth Fire, the Sunset Fire, the Auto Fire.

There were seven main fires that wreaked havoc here in Los Angeles.

And just to give you a sense, I believe the numbers are as follows.

55,082 acres.

55,082 acres burned here in Los Angeles.

Over 16,000 structures, 16,240 structures burned in Los Angeles.

28 lives were lost in these fires.

Eight, let's see, 180,000 people were under evacuation orders during these fires.

And by the way, 12 people, dozen people are still missing according to my research here.

And so LA has been devastated.

Depending on the estimates, I've heard as much as $250 billion worth of damage here in Los Angeles due to these fires.

And that's Mayor.

I mean on and on, when you think about the devastation to the economy and to the businesses, you know it's probably going to end up being far more than that.

Who knows?

But I mean, please understand, I mean it's not just houses burned.

I mean schools burn, grocery stores, churches, hospitals.

I mean these communities were wiped off the map, absolutely devastated.

As I mean about the buildings, these are unique, specific cultures.

You know, the, the Altadena area, very important community to the African American community here in America and here in Southern California.

Altadena is very special place.

Palisades, you know, gets a lot of the press because of the celebrity and the, in the wealth.

But the Altadena area was a incredible area filled with, with, with, with professional artists and creatives and so many of the below the line people in Hollywood lived in the Altadena area and lived in Altadena era and were just completely wiped out.

I personally know many people who were wiped out.

My daughter in her class, she.

My daughter goes to a small school, there were seven girls, she goes to all girls school.

Seven girls in her class, seventh grade class lost everything, lost their homes.

You know, we had to evacuate.

I saw the fires come over the ridge.

I live sort of in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains and the Palisades fire was burning over the ridge here and I saw the flames coming to our house and didn't know what was going to happen.

We packed up and moved out and we're gone for a week and came back and we were one of the lucky ones.

But that just means that the fires shifted and somebody else houses house burned.

So I don't feel good about my luck.

I'm grateful for my luck, but I feel just completely heartbroken for so many people that lost everything and that includes artists, that includes so many artists that we know, especially in the Altadena area.

And, and so climate change impacts everybody.

Climate is everywhere, it's changing everywhere.

It impacts everyone.

It impacts the poorest among us in the world.

And you know, these in.

But.

Yes, but it also doesn't discriminate either.

You know, my wife went to go to the dentist the other day, and our dentist is in, in Glendale, California.

And Glendale was not impacted by the fires.

And so my wife went to go see Dr.

Bogdan.

She's been seeing Dr.

Bogdan for 30 years.

And she goes to see Dr.

Bogdan and he comes in, starts making small talk.

Of course the fires come up and we, you know, ask.

My wife asks him, you know, how are they doing?

She, he says, well, we lost everything in the Altadena fire.

And of course we didn't know that.

And it was heartbreaking to hear.

And, you know, the reality is the universe is a different mother.

Nature doesn't care who you are if you are a dentist or an actor or an artist or a homeless person.

You know, nature and devastation is, is indiscriminate and indifferent and everybody is potentially impacted.

So whether you think it won't happen to you or guess what, it can happen to you, and guess what, it may happen to you.

And so, you know, please, buyer beware.

Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

And we are just here at Crew Studio are just heartbroken.

And we just have this weird, you know, given our position here in LA and our business in Asheville, we just have this, this, this, this, this odd reality that, that we just know so many artists that have been ruined, ruined, absolutely ruined by climate change in recent weeks and months.

And so my heart is broken and I just wanted to shout out, use this time to shout out to everyone and, and just raise the, raise the, the issue again.

I don't want this to be forgotten.

I don't want the, you know, we're, we're so.

The media obviously has moved on, on so many important issues, not the least of which is an authoritarian regime taking root in Washington D.C.

and so it's easy to forget about the fires and it's easy to, you know, forget about my friend that escaped just with her clothes on her back and her children and lost everything.

You know, shit happens.

That's life.

And it could happen to you, it could happen to me.

It almost happened to me.

And maybe next time it will.

And I hope you're okay.

I hope you're safe.

Hope it didn't happen to you.

But maybe it did.

And so I just want to, I just wanted to take this time to honor the tragedy in a weird way.

I want to honor the first responders and the firefighters and thank them for all their incredible bravery and Incredible, dangerous, hard work to try to make a difference.

And they did.

They did.

The politicization of all of this is just horrendous and there's plenty of blame to go around.

Everybody's got blood on their hands, whether you're Republican or Democrat.

We have 8 billion people on the planet.

We've built in places we're not supposed to be living.

California is in a 15 year drought.

Yes, of course there's corruption and waste, of course.

What do you think it's.

That's as old as man, you're not going to get rid of greed.

And it's a bipartisan issue.

And yes, Mayor Bass fucked up big time, certainly.

But, you know, the reason these fires happened, you know, were years in the making, decades in the making, and both parties have blood on their hands.

So anyway, the point is this, that shit's going to happen and all we can control is our attitude.

And we can prepare, of course, we can learn, we can read, we can prepare.

And we should.

But we should also, of course, I think, have a fair amount of grace and empathy and compassion when these things happen and help each other and help our neighbors.

As LA has come around, Asheville came around.

It's amazing what human beings do in the time of need really to come around and support each other, then only to have their politicians, you know, point fingers and point blame and, and, and, and hold, hold funding and, and close and shutter things like ua, USAID or FEMA or what have you, on and on and on it goes.

But here's the deal.

This, I'm saying all that to say this, you know, it doesn't matter.

We can wring our hands and point fingers about causality.

And I think that so many people that have been on this issue talking about climate change, we want to point our fingers, we want to point our fingers to capitalism and to Big Oil.

And by the way, absolutely, there is, you know, climate change is absolutely related to capitalism and Big Oil, but it's also related to 8 billion people on the planet.

I could point my finger at the Catholic Church, you know, fucking embrace birth control.

Let's stop having so many fucking humans on the planet.

Right?

That's my view.

But 8 billion people on the planet is stressing the system.

And by the way, we're going to have 10 billion in no time.

So I think there's plenty of blame to go around, whether it's capitalism, Big Oil, the Catholic church, you know, 8 billion people on the planet, you know, nature is going to be okay.

Nature.

There's a Natural cycle to things where we're born, we live, we die.

This is what it is.

It's cyclical.

It's a natural process.

But I just want to encourage us to maybe have a different conversation and think about things differently.

You know, I wish we could think about this in the context of what mom told us.

You know, I don't know about you, but my mom told me to.

Don't make a mess and clean up after myself and keep my room tidy and make my bed and.

Turns out we're not listening to Mom.

Our planet is a mess.

We're not, we're, we're, we're making a mess everywhere.

Where we're, we're, we're, we're, we're leaving, we're leaving a footprint.

We're leaving a trace.

You know, in camping they say leave no trace.

My God, have human beings left trace?

Mom said don't make a mess.

Boy, are we making a mess.

Mom said keep your room clean.

Boy, are we not tending to our room.

Our planet is our room.

Our planet is the only space we have.

And if we don't take care of it and don't clean up after ourselves and we don't keep, keep it tidy, keep it neat and tidy, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna have a major.

More consequences, major consequences.

And it's not gonna be pretty.

So I, I just wish we could have a different conversation.

I wish we could rather than politicize these things or, or, or, or government or big business to fix it, which, by the way, they have to change their ways, no doubt.

But I wish we could think about it in terms of personal responsibility.

I think we should think about it in terms of duty to, to our communities, duty to each other, duty to ourselves, duty to the planet.

We have an obligation to the community.

Obligation to the planet.

And business and capitalists and government need to embrace this.

It's too easy to point fingers.

You know the old saying, you point a finger, you know, four fingers are pointing back at, back at me.

If I point a finger, you know, I got, I got at least three fingers pointing back at me.

So, yes, we can only do so much as people, you know, big business and government has to get involved, but causality is, you know, we can, we can politicize causality all we want, but I just wish we could think about it in terms of what mom said.

Said don't make a mess.

Clean up after ourselves.

Keep our rooms neat.

Keep, keep, make our bed.

Keep, keep a tidy room.

And we're, we're just, we're just not doing any of that as a species.

We're just not, we just don't give a fuck.

Maybe we can't, Maybe we can't.

I'm just so frustrated.

So frustrated.

I know we all are, but we can just, we just got to do what we can do and that's all we can do, right?

I'm not going to wait on somebody else to save me, nor should you.

We're on our own, people.

I think that's what we're learning here.

We're on our own and so look after each other.

Look after your family, look after your neighbor, look after each other.

Don't expect the government to save us.

Don't expect big business to change.

We've got to, we've got to look after ourselves and look after each other.

And I, I don't mean to sound alarmist, and I don't mean to sound like, you know, certainly a conservative Republican.

I'm not.

But I just know that we have to take matters into our own hands and do the best we can to save ourselves because no one's going to come for us.

No one's going to do it for us.

So that's it.

That's my rant.

I don't know, maybe I made a point, maybe I made sense, maybe I didn't.

I don't know.

I hope this lands the.

And I hope you take this in the spirit I offer it.

I'm just really frustrated and I feel so bad for so many people that I know and artists that I know specifically who have been devastated by these horrific so called natural disasters that were completely predictable, we were warned and by the way, could have been avoided.

But of course, here we are.

And so what does the future look like moving forward?

I don't know.

All I know is that I'm glad I'm here with you and I'm glad that we can use art and use our voices and use our creative expressions to help shine a light on these issues and resist, resist the authoritarian regimes that try to impose their will on our lives and for money, for power.

And I just encourage all of us to do what we can to resist, to rise up, to speak truth, to power, to hold true to our values and to our convictions and do all we can to shine a light on these issues and make some change and make some art that hopefully communicates the truth.

Because the truth will set us free.

Right.

All right, that's it.

I'm out of here.

Bye.