Episode Summary: In this episode Jenn Swanson, Brian Tormey and Leekei Tang talk to Jason Angell who has created his personal and professional life centred around ecological living.

They discuss how Jason and his wife Jocelyn came about launching the Long Haul Farm, a community-supported agriculture farm which serves food to the community and trains new farmers. 

Jason and his wife also started The Ecological Citizens Project, which connects the work they’re doing to the wider Hudson Valley community.

They talked about the role of municipalities in helping communities live a more sustainable life as Jason is running for the Town Board of Philipstown.

For more information on the project and to order your copy of the Carbon Almanac, visit thecarbonalmanac.org

Want to join in the conversation?

Visit thecarbonalmanac.org/podcasts and send us a voice message on this episode or any other climate-related ideas and perspectives.

Don’t Take Our Word For It, Look It Up!

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From Garrison, Philipson on the east coast of the US, Jason practises sustainable living and agriculture, including running a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program and diversified, free-range livestock program, and making, baking, canning, pickling, cutting, cooking, growing and mending various things.

From Langley in British Columbia, Canada, Jenn is a Minister, Coach, Writer and Community Connector, helping people help themselves.  

Brian is a Real Estate Title Insurance Professional and Goat Farmer in the US. 

Leekei is a fashion business founder, a business coach, an international development expert and podcaster from Paris, France.  

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The CarbonSessions Podcast is produced and edited by Leekei Tang, Steve Heatherington and Rob Slater.

Hi, I'm Ima.

I live in Scotland.

Hi, I'm Jen and I'm from Canada.

Hi, I'm Ola Vanji and I'm from Nigeria.

Hello, I'm Leaky and I live in Paris.

Hey, I'm Rod.

I'm from Peru.

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Hi, I am leaky.

Hi, I'm Jen.

Hi, I'm Brian.

And we're here at Carbon Conversations with our fabulous guest for the day of

Jason Angel, who is joining us to have a wonderful, low-key conversation today

about the things he's been doing in the world to help make it a better place.

So Jason, thanks for joining us today.

I'm gonna let you describe a little bit about yourself and all the

things you've been doing, and then we're gonna start, uh, diving into

some questions about those things.

So I'll turn the microphone over to you.

. Okay.

Sounds great.

So good to be with you all.

So how to summarize, I guess, my life and what I do, uh, in a nutshell.

So, you know, I, I would say kind of when I think about where I am today, I

generally think about how for about 10 years of my life I was working in the

political arena and the policy arena.

It was directing policy for the working families party, which is.

A very progressive party in New York state, living in New York City.

And I kind of had a mini, I wouldn't say a midlife crisis cause I don't know

if I was at midlife yet, but I had a crisis in the sense of if a lot of the

problems we face, whether they're climate related or social inequity related, a

lot of the problems we face can't all be solved by policy and they require some

level of personal life transformation.

Uh, you know, what was my.

Doing about that.

And so my wife and I ended up moving to Argentina for about two years and

we ended up on a farm in Argentina.

That was a beautiful place run by a beautiful family.

And we both got hooked into farming and it became a way to kind of live some of the

values we thought that were necessary in order to build a more regenerative world.

And so we came back.

And started a farm on family land about 10 years ago now, and just

got involved in a bunch of stuff.

I mean, I think one thing about climate activism, I think about

is that it's not just about the environment, it's about people.

It's about how we treat the land.

It's about a lot of different things, and so, Since we started the farm, which

serves food to the community and trains new farmers, we've started a nonprofit

called The Ecological Citizens Project, which connects the work we're doing

to the wider Hudson Valley community.

And then a year or so ago, I must have, uh, fallen down and hit my head.

I decided to run for local town board and.

That is because with the problems we face, I've kind of learned as I've

gotten older, there's no one solution.

And so we really need as many tools in the toolbox as possible.

And so I just want to explore what you can do at the local

government level around that issue.

So, um, that, that is it.

That's, that's, that's my life.

In a nutshell.

That's great.

Well, I know there's even more to it than all that, but, uh, but that's a lot

of exciting things that you're up to.

So this farm is a place that you and your family live and you're raising

your family there at the farm.

Can you tell us a little bit about what a day is like for you?

I'm sure it's very different in the deep winter versus the spring versus

the summer as the seasons change, but give us some sort of context for life

for the angel family there at, at the.

and it's, and it's called Long Haul Farm.

It is, yeah, it's called Long Haul Farm, and we're located in Garrison, New York,

about an hour north of New York City, um, and life right now, I'm looking out

at the fields and it's wintertime here.

So life for us as a farmer in the wintertime is a chance to

step back from the growing cycle.

You know, it's a chance to kind of look at seed catalogs and think

about things you're gonna plant.

It's one of the most hopeful parts of a farming season because it's all.

imagining the next season without weeds growing yet.

So farm at this point of the season, the farm is dormant.

Um, and then over the course of the season, our farm is, is a small farm,

so we practice regenerative agriculture.

You know, there's things to talk about there, but it's a way of

farming that is leaving the soil better off than you found it.

Um, it's not as related to sustainable, which is the idea

of keeping it the same place.

Regeneration is really about the idea of, of leaving it better off.

Regenerative farming techniques.

Um, we on about a half acre of vegetable growing space, we

have 50 families in our C S A.

And then we do small scale, uh, livestock including pigs, chickens, and turkeys.

And then we also train new farmers, uh, primarily farmers of color from low income

urban areas on our farm during the summer.

this is the chance to get fat a little bit as a farmer, , uh, you know, have,

have some wine by the fireplace and then work it all off in a couple months.

So . I like that.

I like that.

Um, the thing I'm curious of when you're talking about like making the land better,

that regenerative construct, like what are some of the techniques used for in your

farm that are helping improve the land and leave it better than you found it?

Better than?

Good question.

So, you know, some of the basics are you're always adding back to the soil.

So whether that be compost, whether that be, uh, horse manure

from the farm down the road.

I mean, you're just constantly feeding the soil.

I mean, when you think about it, your, your job kind of,

becomes about feeding the soil.

You know, a second probably major principle is you're just

never leaving soil uncovered.

So like very large scale farms that'll kind of plow in the crop and leave it

there, you know, that releases a lot of carbon in the atmosphere and so you're

always keeping your farm mulch or covered.

We practice really no-till and no big machinery farming there really.

Many fossil fuel inputs coming in.

Uh, and so you're really trying to use all of the different organic

materials in nature to feed the soil and regenerate it instead of kind of

just constantly taking things out of it.

I said that I had a question or six, and now I have even more.

But I wanted to go back to where you said at the beginning, it's not just about

policy, but it's about transformation.

And then my second question is, how does one just end up moving to Argentina?

. Good.

So , I mean, don't get me wrong, I definitely believe that

policy change and political.

Is required for climate work and, and building better society.

I just think for me personally, you know, I found myself writing white

papers or draft legislation in New York City consuming like every good

New York City person kind of cut off from nature, thinking about an

apartment that we could afford or not.

And I just felt like, you know, it's hard to.

Our lives and the way we live from the work we're doing.

It just didn't seem enough to be like, I want to pass a good piece of environmental

legislation, but I also want a second and third home and to vacation, you

know, in a warm place in the winter.

So there was, to me a real calling about, um, how to build a life

model that aligns with some of your political aspirations and values.

Jen led us down a long wormhole of, of trying to build a life that way.

And so, to your second question about Argentina, I don't know

if there's a good answer.

Uh, I kind of realized after 10 years that it wasn't just about finding a new job.

I kind of was like chafing against my way of life.

And so about a year before we moved, um, Argentina sounded like a romantic place.

My wife wanted to learn Spanish.

She was writing her dissertation in public health and needed to do that for a year.

I was kind of trying to figure out, I had kind of gotten the job.

I.

and was still unhappy, so I was like, Ooh, I'm kind of at a really blank spot.

I don't know what the next step is.

And so Argentina seemed like a romantic place to go.

We actually left two weeks after we got married and we put aside a little bit

of money, so we asked for no wedding gifts, but we asked for contributions

to like sustain us in this year.

And, and after about three months in bu, ours we're like, we don't have jobs.

Cities are really made for people that work.

I mean, you know, and we're like, we're only gonna be down here for like

three months if, if we don't move.

And so we ended up being at BU Riss.

Then moving down to Patagonia where a friend had just traveled

through to an amazing town and my wife just happened to find a.

Uh, uh, uh, a little cabin for rent on a farm.

It sounded a little bit dicey.

I mean, she had learned Spanish, they, like they mentioned circle

dances, and we were like, ah.

I don't know.

It sounds a little dicey, but, but it is only $200 a month that we moved

down there and it was just, This family had been running a sustainable

farm for 20 years and I was kind of riding, thinking in the morning,

volunteering for them on their farm in the afternoon and that that routine of

kind of mixing the intellectual work.

uh, with the physical work just made me a lot happier.

And I feel like sometimes we all, or people who get highly educated,

get trained to think of physical work as something below them and

we get isolated from physical work.

And I just found that I wanted a life that blended both the

intellectual work and the physical.

And so we came back and, um, and started the farm about 10 years ago.

Amazing.

Thank you.

Yeah.

You said you had six.

You wanna keep pepper in him, or leaky, and I can pepper him next.

, . Well, I'll ask one more.

There'll be half of my six.

Um, so what is lighting you up now?

Uh, especially about climate.

Especially about carbon.

Especially about climate.

Okay.

What's lighting you up now?

So, great question.

I mean, so the, the project that's probably taking the most of my time right.

Is through our nonprofit, which is called the Ecological Citizens Project, and we

launched a program called the Regenerative Communities Program a couple years ago.

And the basic idea is that the farming world is very white.

It's very old, it's aging out.

We need new farmers and we need farmers across the spectrum.

And so we started training farmers on our, our farm.

Three years ago, and then working with nearby cities to gain access

to municipal land where the farmers we train are, are going to those

sites and they're creating what we're thinking of as public food gardens.

So a community farmer grows food on those sites and, and anybody

is welcome to come and harvest it.

So it's kind of, you know, a return to a commons idea.

And so what's really, uh, taking a lot of our energy right now is we

are sustaining that program through foundations and philanthropic giving.

You know, if you wanna change the world, you probably can't do it

only on philanthropic giving alone.

And so we got a grant from New York State to try to develop community owned solar

in peak scale, where by changing the ownership structure, you have control

over the profits off of the solar system.

And so we're trying to steer those profits towards paying urban farmers.

So, you know, not to go deeply into it, but.

You know, food like everything else, obviously in a capitals

economy is a commodity.

And so even as a small farmer, like we find as a small farmer, you know,

if you're trying to be economically viable as a small farmer, you are

growing microgreens for restaurants, or you are bringing your produce

to the farmer's market where people are willing to pay the most for it.

And all of a sudden your food is not necessarily going

to people who need it most.

Um, and so if we start thinking to ourselves, Well, what if in a C

food commodity world, the people who can't afford it don't get to eat it?

That's just too bad.

It's a commodity, right?

But if we start to think about building a new energy system and who owns it

and where the profits go, which is what wakes me up in the middle of the night,

it's kind of transformative, right?

And if a farmer is paid by a revenue stream off of solar to grow, , they've

kind of taken a bit of food out of the commodity system and you can

now treat it like a human right.

You can treat it like food should go to people who need it most,

regardless of ability to pay.

I believe even if we could do it in the city of peak scale, a small city

demonstrate that you can build solar and, and redirect the profits from

it, then I think, you know, it can be really impactful for other communities.

So, Jason, we've known each other for a number of years now, but it's interesting.

I don't chat with you much about my day job.

In my day job, I actually deal with a ton of solar developers all

across the country and we do tons of transactions and large scale solar

projects all across the country.

So after this recording, we gotta talk more about that because I feel like

I've got a number of them that may be interested in thinking through as

they're deploying numerous community solar projects across the country.

Incorporating if you could help fashion, some kind of model that like helps.

Go first.

I don't know that we should do it all here in the podcasts, but uh, I'm very

excited to chat through that, Brian.

That's amazing.

So obviously I'm very excited to talk about that and I just wanna point out

the irony that we have this like global podcast, everybody on different lines.

Me and you live like five miles from each other and like we're being united in

this conversation via, so that's awesome.

With leaky in Paris and Jen out in western Canada, right.

. Yeah.

I love it.

I love.

, are you envisioning that solar in the same space as the public commons?

No, it doesn't have to be.

They can be divorced.

Yeah, they can be divorced.

I think it's just about creating like a community benefit fund

off of the solar project.

Mm-hmm.

, but they don't have to be co-located in the exact same space.

Yeah.

Although there's this interesting thing about.

Where certain crops kind of growing and you would know more about this

than I are starting to be grown under solar panels that actually like pivot.

Yeah.

Because they like, they capture the sun, but then at a certain point

they wanna let the sun through to the plants, but at certain crops benefit

from something that can actually create a certain amount of shade for them.

Yeah.

And so that these farms being created where crops are grown

under a solar field on purpose.

and like the solar panel actually move out of the way for a certain

point of the day and then come back.

I dunno if you've heard about that.

I have.

And it, I, I think it makes a lot of sense because it, once you dig into the farming

world, there's a lot of farms just can't compete in the globalized food economy and

against very, very large farm holdings.

And so integrating solar that provides another revenue stream for farmers

with farms makes a lot of sense and.

I mean, I've just gotta say, I mean, Brian, to something you said in the

beginning about taking climate, but kind of sprinkling it in different fields.

I feel like the reason I'm interested in community owned solar

is because most environmentalists, they're like, we just want solar

because it's good for the earth.

They're not necessarily putting their economist hat on and saying,

well, who's gonna own actually the infrastructure of the next energy system

and, and where are the profits going?

And so I think it's worth looking beyond just the renewable energy part and

asking the kind of economic question part about, as we're transitioning to

a whole new energy system, who owns the assets and where do the profits go?

You.

Which is always a fun conversation to talk about on Friday afternoon.

leaky.

You mentioned in chat that you had a question.

Yes, I have a question.

I have a lot of admiration for people who are involved in politics,

and especially people that are running for the municipal politics.

And I don't know if it works the same way, uh, in the US and in France,

but the, the mayor and the, and the, and the local politics are very

important because they are the first.

People that are really in touch with the people locally.

And I think that this job, it is part of the, of politics is very, very important.

It's is really where things, real things, real action are taken

and real things are happening.

So first, uh, curious to you for running for that.

And then secondly, I'm have a lot of admiration for people who are involved

in doing that because, um, politics can be very divisive and the climate.

Can be extremely divisive.

And when you combine those two, it's very difficult to find a

consensus because sometimes people believe something, but they just

think, okay, I vote against that.

Or I just, I reject that because you know, the guy is not for my party.

And we see that a lot at, uh, different level of policy making.

So how do you deal with that?

I think it's a very broad question, but I think it's a good question.

Leaky, I mean, I, uh, So, um, I think you're right, that local

politics, I think it does work.

The same mayors and council members, they are the closest form of government

to people and to people's lives.

So I do think there's an element where, you know, people are gonna

stop you and reach out to you if.

There's a pothole on their dirt road or if there's a cell tower being built.

So everything from those kind of everyday life issues.

And then secondarily, it's like, you know, all, like for example, I, I, I'm

on the town board, it's all part-time.

Everybody lives here in this community.

And, you know, you can walk down to a town board meeting,

so it's, it's more accessible.

Right.

And so I, I do think, I mean personally in times that are really divisive

politically, At national levels, state levels, that local politics usually is,

is a good antidote to that divisiveness because at least, at the very least,

you're not just operating in a vacuum of kind of what political party you

are or what ideology you're talking about, a place you live together.

And so, you know, that's a really, uh, a really important.

And, you know, so I, I've been talking, can I mention the two examples of

kind of like potholes in a road with local government, but I also, one of

the reasons why, um, I wanted to run and why our nonprofit kind of focuses

on local level solutions is without getting too wonky, I used to teach

American government, um, at BROS Community College and the 10th Amendment.

I was gonna quiz you.

I was like, you're going to teacher mode.

Does anybody know what the 10th Amendment says?

? No.

. So, so I, I consider the 10th Amendment to be the radical clause in the

Constitution, and it basically says all powers not reserved for the United

States government, nor prohibited to the states are reserved for the.

And so really what that means is at the local level, if you're pushing a new

idea or new policy, you can demonstrate it at the local level because you're

moving ahead of the state government or the national government, right?

And so an example of that is Brian knows it.

So our local municipality help launch what's called community

choice aggregation, the C C A.

which allows now 10 different municipalities in the Hudson Valley to

purchase their electricity together.

It's like a bulk purchasing club.

And so because we've all come together across 10 municipalities, we can

now say to electricity suppliers like, okay, we're 45,000 households.

This account is worth a lot of money.

We want renewable energy.

We want to.

Where our electricity comes from.

Right.

And that has done that and it's saved people money.

So I, I guess I'm just saying like, while some people are like local

government, it's just for dog catchers.

I think it's the place where like smart people, people who want

to experiment, they can plug in.

And I kind of feel like a lot of the systems we've built are crumbling

and so we're in a period needing like reinventing, reimagining.

And so I think local levels are really good places to do.

I have other reflections about being a local elected

official, but I, I'll hold them.

I'll hold them off.

But I agree with you that it, it's close to the people and.

I guess you used the word admiration.

I would say one lesson learned I have is like, I think I used to admire elected

officials more, and I'm kind of, now that I'm doing it, I'm like, I don't

think we should admire them anymore.

I don't think we should like hold them up if we ever do.

Like it's, it's like being a plumber, like you have a pretty basic job to do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How do you help people?

Where's the budget going?

Yeah.

So I, I wish we kind of took it off its pedestal a little bit more, and you

cannot be on holiday or have your evenings because you are on call all the time and

you cannot hide because you know you live there, so you have to face your decision

and face the people or you are serving.

Yeah.

It's So that's admiration.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I, I also admire plumbers cuz you know, I don't wanna do that.

It's true.

And you, yeah, it is very true.

Yeah.

So my question about that, as you said, often the municipal,

local people close to the ground.

Come up with things long before the big government comes up

with it or even thinks of it.

But how do you manage the frustration of moving faster than the large.

Structure moves.

When there's a great idea, there's something that's come up, there's

an initiative that's planned.

There's something that you would love to see adopted everywhere.

And sometimes when you're dealing with a large institution,

it can take decades Yeah.

To get anywhere.

So how do you manage the expectations and the frustrations there?

That's, that's a good question.

I mean, I, I think one thing I'd say, You definitely can't wait around for state

or federal or international governments to act on something you care about

because like you're saying, these are gigantic bureaucracies, you know, often

filled with people that don't want to act unless someone else has act acted.

And so I definitely think one way I've kept myself mentally

sane is to realize that.

structures take a while to act.

And so, you know, the point of working at the local level is, like

you said, Jen, you can experiment.

, you're not fooling yourself.

Like doing something in one town is not changing it for the rest of the world.

But I think the most important thing, it's better to, to build something that

people can come visit and see than to write a great white paper or put a really

great PowerPoint out there, you know?

And so I think.

If one town does something and six or seven or eight more do it,

then you do start to increase the chances that the state does it.

And I think another thing is, unlike being in a for-profit business where you're kind

of always protecting your software and you know your plans, like at this level,

you, you want to give it away for free.

You want people to steal it.

And so if that means like the county comes in and they do it and you take no credit

for it, Then that's the way to do it.

Like give it all away, let people do it, take no credit, and it's

kind of freeware, you know?

Thank you.

I just wanted to jump on the comment that you've just made, that it's not

like, you know, uh, in companies that people tend to protect your invention,

and this is something that I actually see more and more in the startup worlds.

Is that because the climate.

Challenge is so pressing that we need to act now that the startups now

are leaning towards sharing more and make it, you know, when there's an

innovation, they put it and say, okay, you can use it and spread the idea.

And so, so this is, uh, what.

What is currently done in the municipalities and also in the

non-for-profit world is also spreading.

Using ideas of spreading ideas is also reflecting, uh, in the startup

world, in the private companies.

I agree with that.

It's good to hear that that's starting to kind of move into the private

sector and the for-profit sector.

And I still even think from the nonprofit sector and the local

government level, like we all have to learn to think this way more and.

Once you do, I think it lends itself to, to, to this question of how ideas spread.

Like, like I know from local municipal work, you need to package

your ideas and give them away.

So if there's a local law that you pass to make something happen, you need to

publish that law and give it to other municipalities so they can use it.

If you identified lands for farming by using.

You know the county's tax partial ID folder.

You need to document it as a nonprofit.

Lay out a roadmap for other people to use.

If you want it to spread and you want other people to use it, you

have to build it into how you present material, but it's good to

hear that that's spreading as well.

You know, I think this is a really interesting intersection for me.

There's a charity that I've been involved with for a number

of years called News Story.

They've sort of done a number of things to innovate and build homes in

impoverished areas around the world.

They average about 4,000 to $5,000 for a fully constructed home for a family.

It's like amazing what they've done by like innovating what they're doing.

They've actually designed and engineered this amazing 3D printer that 3D.

A house that you get to move into.

Anyway, some really cool stuff.

And one of their original concepts when they were first founding this

nonprofit and getting it going was to be contrarian what with what is often the

case in the nonprofit community, which is like, Have your ideas in the way you

do things and keep them to yourselves.

Mm-hmm.

. And so they said, Hey, when we're founding this charity, we're gonna go do

some smart things and some r and d and come up with good ways of doing things.

And we wanna be very intentional as you were just speaking

about Jason and leaky at.

Documenting those along the way and creating them as like free coat, you know?

And they'd actually created, like on their website, like my wife and

I were one of their early people who funded a home on their website.

And at the time they were like cut and pasting little images to show that

the like fundraiser bar was going up.

They were like doing it manually.

But since then, they built out this really beautiful website that does

all this great fundraising tools.

and then they gave it away as like source code that they're like, here's a

tool every other nonprofit can go use.

We built it in a way that you can use it easily, and then they've come and done

all these other things along the way.

and they really has been an intentional part of their organization.

And as I stop and think about this climate challenge that we're facing,

I, I see so much of exactly what you just spoke about where like there's

lots of smart ideas happening.

Like innovation is happening in so many pockets.

I could consume so many different news stories and videos all the time.

And, and Jason, I'm curious, you've done some of this in your ecological

citizens project and there with your farm, you've done some of this.

Any tips on.

and, and your political service.

Tips to other people out there pushing the envelope, innovating, creating

solutions in how they're helping impact the climate in a positive direction.

Like tips and ideas of how to do, do the documenting, how to go get the word out.

Um, how to, I think there's one thing maybe is like how to not feel caught up

that the, like they're bragging, right?

Like, Hey, I did this great idea.

Right?

There's a little bit of that.

Hold back.

Well, I don't wanna brag about my.

, but maybe they should Thoughts and, and, and feedback on that sort of framework

to help our listeners do more of that.

Hmm.

That's such a, um, so, you know, as I think about it, I mean, you know, I know

we kind of started talking by talking about the idea of personal transformation

and I, you know, as I think about.

Like, personally, think about it.

Like I, I think to me, like if I ever have an inclination to hold that sort of

thing back or not give a three pager, I wrote up on how to do something to another

organization or like if, if I had talked about an idea with an organization, then

I saw that they got a news piece written about them, you know, or whatever.

Like when I stopped to think about.

You know, we all have to struggle with our own ego and our own desire

to be the one, and we all, most me, I grew up in western culture, western

capitalist culture, that's very heavily focused on the individual and status.

and so I, I, my first tip, I don't know Brian if it's easy, is that like

we all have to realize that we are products of a certain way of seeing the

world and it's not like the far east.

That values kind of collectivism and kind of kill your ego so you can be.

Part of the world.

You know, we are very individuals focused.

And so I think everybody does need to ask themselves, like when they're holding

onto something and their inclination to hold on versus to give away how

much of that is tied to their own sense of, of ego and individual desire.

And I think like if we're gonna move there, a lot of us all have to do

work on letting go of those things.

So that's one kind of metaphysical, I guess answer.

And that's just personally something I think.

. And then the second is the spaces we're operating in.

You know, when you start working and trying to promote bipo, black,

indigenous people of color, farmers or organizations, I think you

quickly have to realize also that you should be at the back of the room.

That like if there is a panel discussion or a conference or an

interview, like you should really, as much as possible, move to the.

and let other people lead.

And it's a weird thing to do across all the spaces like being

in politics, like where a lot of politics feels like you're trying to

always get credit for what you do.

Like I've definitely found the more you take credit for something,

the less progress you make.

And so I would, I would just say your question, like as you go, struggle

with those things and document, really think about documenting key lessons

you learn as you go and key tools and put them in a Gdrive folder.

So when you get to the end of a success, you have something to

share that other people can use.

That's awesome.

Really good words of advice.

I, I think your, your commentary there about, Recognizing that we're all growing

up and, and raised in different places.

Makes, makes a lot of sense.

A question for you, I'm gonna pivot to a different topic.

One of the other things, and you haven't mentioned it yet, but I know that you've

been doing some work on for a little while, is leading towards sort of, you

know, bike transportation and helping create, you know, in our local community,

uh, a bike day and really using.

Mapping and, and going through a whole community engagement process to help

create both biking opportunities within the street landscape as well as separately

this larger sort of like trail network of can we get in coordination with

some private landowners and things?

Can we get some longer trails put together that allow for biking

at distance without lots of road crossings of that kind of stuff.

Can you, can you share a little bit about that?

Cause I, I think that's something also.

is a great idea.

You've really done amazing work with it and could spread

into so many other communities.

Yeah, it's interesting, like, so we'd love to talk about the Phillips Town

Trail and, and just to back it up, my wife and I, Jocelyn, our nonprofit,

was involved in doing a participatory democracy process called the Community

Congress, and it's kind of getting at these larger questions again.

, you know, national problems, people divisive politics, money in politics,

what can you do at the local level?

And so we just facilitated in our town, Brian, as you know, the community

congress process, and then in the city of peak scale, which is very,

very different, um, demographically.

And it was a very simple process.

It was just community members in a.

Probably have their own ideas about how do it make their community

better, and you should ask them.

And so we just did a process where any community member could put forward their

top priority to build a better community.

And all of those ideas that were presented, we put on a ballot

and then we mailed that ballot to every household in the community.

And we said, what are your top three priorities?

So the idea was just to let people have a way of setting the.

that would help guide elected officials.

I mean, to me it's really more democracy than we usually think of.

And so outta that process, Brian came, the number one

voted priority in Phillips Town.

Our community was improved and safe biking and walking trails.

So, weirdly enough, Brian, we also did that community Congress process

in peak scale, which you know well.

Mm-hmm.

, I mean, peak scale's five miles south of us, primarily low.

Majority Hispanic and black.

Very different community.

Mm-hmm.

. Mm-hmm.

and safe biking and walking also was the number one priority.

It's very weird.

Who, who knew?

So many people just want to be able to like safely walk or bike somewhere.

two very different communities and so, That process, um, in Phillips sound led

to the Phillips Sound Trails Committee.

And so, uh, we've been working, it's a group of community

volunteers, amazing people.

The only way that local stuff gets done is community volunteers

who say, you know what?

I care about this.

I'm gonna give up a couple nights a week.

I'm gonna jump on the zoom call.

I'm gonna do real work.

Laura Boze and Rebecca Ramirez are two community volunteers who

are the chairs of the trails.

And so we got a grant from New York State.

And so we're currently in the process of exploring the feasibility of building

a, a biking and walking path between Cold Spring and Garrison and all the

connecting points, the libraries and the parks and the, and the schools.

And so I guess what I've learned, is that it's very difficult.

To build biking and walking infrastructure after you've committed to cars so deeply.

Not impossible, but difficult.

Difficult because people overwhelmingly support it.

But when you're building a trail near or through someone's property, you know,

one person can be in the way of something that could benefit the whole community.

So it's, it's really interesting.

Obviously it's a key part of building more carbon friendly communities.

I mean, there's so much mileage is just, just tied to like local errands.

I mean, it's tied to personal health, uh, and people moving around.

And I know for me, I, I guess it's a conflict of interest.

Like I once spent a summer biking with two friends around Europe like.

There's nothing more.

I love biking and my bike has been hanging in microwave.

Yeah.

For like 10 years.

I mean, my kids don't know how to bike and it's like, it drives me crazy.

So finding ways to build that sort of infrastructure are so important.

Um, And, uh, and Leakey's got a question, but I, I forgot that the Community

Congress thing was actually one of the parts that we got to the trails.

Yeah.

But that itself is a, an amazing idea.

Democracy, they're like just at the most like granular kind of level.

It felt like almost.

unusual and freeing to be like, wait, you just wanna know like

any idea we've got that could be good for our community like that.

It felt weird, but awesome.

Anyway, leaky over to you.

Yes.

Uh, Jason, your work is quite wide extended, so if you have one

word or one phrase or one sentence to summarize what you do, you

and Jocelyn, what would that be?

A word, phrase, or sentence I would say.

We made a pretty critical decision to remove the barrier

between our work and our life.

We both stopped thinking about ourselves.

As, you know, from nine to five we do this and, and then in during the weekends

we do this stuff, which we really love.

We really started to think about how do we figure out what we.

and then build our lives around that.

I know that wasn't one word or one sentence leaky, but like test

failed . I'm like, beautiful answer.

I was trying to find the title for this podcast episode . That's her.

Oh, that's her real.

Her real question behind the question, , I mean, I, I think no the

real question that's up to you all to have to re That's the editing.

Good luck with this conversation.

But, um, I mean, I would say getting back to the Argentina, is that like what,

when I hit that wall of like what I, what I professionally thought I wanted

to do and like, I, I really spend six months asking myself, what do I love?

, and I don't think I had put that serious time into really asking

myself that question, and I'm shocked that it, I was 35 at the time.

I'm shocked.

It took me that long in life to, to seriously think about what, and

I don't mean love makes me happy.

I mean like, what do I find purpose in?

What do I find meaning in, to really go through that and.

From there to say, well, how do I then build my life around that?

Like, how do we figure out the money?

Where are we getting healthcare?

You know?

Um, and, and piece that together.

And so, Ecological.

Can I come up with one word?

I mean, we like what does an ecological life look like?

We all have multiple, we all have like multiple passions and interests

and talents, but like we only get paid to do one of them, so the

rest of them we don't get to do.

So I'm like, what is it like once we acknowledge, we're

like connected to everything.

We're multiple people.

We have multiple passions.

Like it doesn't make for a good, I.

I know, I know, I know.

Living.

A life of ecological authenticity with Jason Angel.

There you go.

. I like that one.

Ok.

Whatever the title is, it's gonna be a great episode and, and we're

really, Excited to share it.

Um, Jason, I have to say a really big thanks for, for jumping on

to the recording studio with us.

It's, it's been a, a great hour spent hanging out with you and sharing, you

know, all the things you're doing with, uh, and my friendship with you, with

my other friends, Jen and leaky here, and the whole Carbon Almanac community.

It.

It's been an honor.

We really appreciate your time and all the time and energy you're doing

to help our roles be a better place.

Uh, and, and through your actions and your experimentation and your leadership.

So big shout out and I look forward to pulling our bikes off our respective

garage walls and, and going for a bike ride at some point soon.

Yeah, I, I feel that we can do it a second session as well because

there's so still so much, so many questions that we wanna ask you.

But I know now , I've really, actually, really enjoyed the conversation.

It was really fun, really enjoyed talking to you all.

And I guess one closing thought I would offer is, you know, I talked to a lot

of different people about, activism and change, you know, and I get the

sense there's a lot of despair and there's a lot of kind of paralysis.

And I guess the only thing I would say is that while that is true, like while

many of the living systems and the human built systems we are living in are facing

really collapse, The bright side of that story is that we are gonna need to rebuild

them, and I just think there's a lot.

Mm-hmm.

, once you enter that head space of creativity and re-imagining

and re-envisioning, it kind of lifts some of the despair.

So I just think it's really important to move in that way and

kind of challenge all of ourselves to enter that more radical vision.

Space where we're willing to experiment in the way we live our, our own life

models and what we do in our community, both politically and personally.

Yeah, very well said.

Look forward to another discussion about everything under the sun.

Really?

Yeah.

. Excellent.

Excellent.

Thank you.

All right again, Jason.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

Middle.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bye.

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