The Marsh Appreciation and Restoration Society for Happiness: On The MARSH with its founders

What to do when your prominent low-lying coastal city starts to go underwater, nigh on weekly on average, already? Charleston, South Carolina, is served by The Post and Courier. It runs a series called the Rising Waters Lab. And a couple of months ago, it featured a story titled, ‘The Southeast’s first urban eco-corridor aims to connect fragmented habitats in Charleston’. Welcome to The MARSH Project.

What started as a personal effort among three friends to revitalise and steward an acre of marsh on the peninsula, has grown into a community-powered juggernaut. And not just to save a city from flooding, or even just to restore its incredible lands and waters. But the complex history of this place means the healing runs deep.

One of the founders of the project is Joel Caldwell (also in episode 227 talking about his new film for Patagonia, for which he went on to win the Short Film Award at the prestigious Santa Barbara International Film Festival). It was Judith Schwartz who said we might enjoy meeting Joel - and the two Blakes, Dr Blake Scott and Blake Suárez. When I looked them up online and saw the project they’d instigated was called the Marsh Appreciation and Restoration Society for Happiness, I knew these were guys I did want to meet. 

We arrived in Charleston on a day when the community was to gather at the marsh for a clean-up event. We hear from them too, as I wander alongside Joel and Dr Blake to learn about how this juggernaut is happening.

Recorded Sept. 2024.

Title slide: Joel & Dr Blake (pic: AJ). See more pics on the website & more still for paid subscribers.

Music:

Galaxy Groove, by Yarin Primak (from Artlist)

Stones & Bones, by Owls of the Swamp.

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing The MARSH Project
• 3:30 Charleston's Rising Waters Challenge
• 4:25 Meeting at the marsh
• 8:50 History of the Land and Neighborhood
• 10:25 Heading off, talking coral regeneration in the Florida Keys
• 12:30 How the founders met
• 14:50 The layered context of the place
• 22:30 Encouraging people to engage with their place
• 26:45 How the project started & ignited such interest
• 29:47 At the historical marker they had put in - with block party & re-enactment!
• 31:50 Some of the spin-offs that are happening already
• 34:00 Some of the ways the community is running with it
• 36:40 Checking in with some of the young folk collecting trash
• 38:20 Mentors that helped shape Joel’s and Blake’s paths
• 39:25 The most outstanding collecting exemplar (with the family in the mix)
• 40:54 Back to Blake’s fascinating story
• 43:12 And Joel’s
• 46:25 Reconciling the crap on media with change on the ground
• 49:30 How cross-generational and multi-cultural participation in change is happening here
• 50:30 What we can do in urban areas (with some of my story from Perth)
• 53:05 A big shift in play with the joy piece
• 55:40 Episode Closing and Updates

Transcript

Dr Blake: 0:00

You know, we were just shooting the shit, really having fun playing, taking a tiny micro break from parenting, and all of a sudden it's like, all right, let's do a cleanup. Oh, why don't we come up with a name for our group as we clean up? And oh, wait a second, why don't we do a few of these other things? And we're doing it as we're parenting, and so who wants to parent and look at the world as a piece of shit? I want my kids to enjoy life and to feel joyful and come down and see this, not feel like we're all sinking and dying.

AJ: 0:43

What to do when your prominent low-lying coastal city starts to go underwater. Nigh on weekly on average already, harleston, south Carolina, is served by the Post and Courier spruiked as the South's oldest daily newspaper. It runs a series called the Rising Waters Lab and a couple of months ago it featured a story titled. The South East's First Urban Eco Corridor Aims to Connect Fragmented Habitats in Charleston. Welcome to the Marsh Project. What started as a personal effort among three friends to revitalise and steward an acre of marsh on the peninsula has grown into a community powered juggernaut, and not just to save a city from flooding or even just to restore its incredible lands and waters. But the complex history of this place means the healing runs deep. One of the co-founders of the project is Joel Caldwell.

Joel: 1:41

So our the MARSH Project is an acronym, it's the Marsh Appreciation Restoration Society for Happiness, and that is the idea. It's like we don't want to just be angry all the time. You know like the stakes are high, yes, but let's not all be miserable. You know Like let's have fun doing this, like let's pick up as much trash as we can until we're too tired, and then let's go eat pizza and drink a couple of beers. You know.

AJ: 2:03

You might remember Joel from here in Charleston on episode 227, talking about his new film for Patagonia, the Green Buffalo. Joel went on to win the Short Film Award at the prestigious Santa Barbara International Film Festival for that, by the way, but the film wasn't the half of what Joel's been up to. It was actually when we left our friends, renowned authors Judith Schwartz and partner Tony Eprile, up in Vermont that Judy said we might enjoy meeting Joel and the two Blakes, dr Blake Scott and Blake Suarez. When I looked them up online and saw the restoration project they'd instigated on their local marsh was called the Marsh Appreciation and Restoration Society. For Happiness I knew these were guys I did want to meet and, true to the window front, this would be no ordinary project.

AJ: 2:53

G'day Anthony James here for The RegenNarration, your independent, listener-supported podcast exploring how people are regenerating the systems and stories we live by, with thanks to generous souls like Lindsay Sell. Thanks so much for increasing your subscription, lindsay. And thanks to new subscribers on Substack Lisa Sonnenberg, sarah Winnie and Joanne Danaher. Little life highlight to have Essendon Footy Club royalty on board. Thanks to you all for making this possible. If you've been thinking about joining this great community supporting listeners, I'd love you to For as little as a dollar a week, with benefits if you like, you can help keep the show on the road. Subscribe free or paid on Patreon or Substack. Just follow the links in the show notes. With my great gratitude.

AJ: 3:39

As it happens, we arrived in Charleston on a day when the community was together at the marsh for a cleanup-up event with beer and pizza afterwards. So we literally rolled into town, said hi, headed to the marsh, put mics on and joined them in wondering if anyone would come to pick rubbish out of mud on a steamy South Carolina afternoon. Well, people came from everywhere. We hear from some of them as I wander alongside Joel and Dr Blake, an associate professor at the College of Charleston, to hear about how this restoration project has taken off with increasing support from the community, local students, designers, private landholders and corridors of power, to become something very special to them and inspirational to the rest of us. Let's head out to the marsh. Okay, heading down to the foreshore here at the marsh event gathering, see if I can stick a microphone on the hosts.

Collector: 4:34

Hey, what's happening.

Joel: 4:35

Anthony, this is Blake Suarez.

Collector: 4:38

Hey Blake, how you doing man All the way from Perth. Wow, just for this cleanup, Just for this.

Joel: 4:44

He's flying home tonight. No, he's here. He's already been here for five months.

Dr Blake: 4:48

And this is.

Joel: 4:48

Blake Scott over here with the big beard. All right, goody.

AJ: 4:52

And who's gonna introduce him? Is it just you, or is it a combination of you?

Joel: 4:55

Yeah, it'll probably. Be definitely it'll be Blake.

AJ: 4:58

All right, I'll stick a mic on him too, then. Eh Okay, cool, I just need to introduce myself.

Joel: 5:02

Yeah, I already told him you did, yeah. Hey, what's happening? The finest people are coming out. How you doing? I'm Joel, I'm Avery, inky, inky, nice to meet you. Here you are, inky, you get a grabber LP.

Collector: 5:20

Nice.

Joel: 5:21

How's everybody doing? Nice to meet you?

AJ: 5:24

I'm gonna take your trash so it doesn't end up in the marsh that would be a bad start.

Joel: 5:28

Lp. How are you? I'm good. How are you All right? Good, it's great to see you. We got Belvin here, bradford. Okay, look, they're coming in in droves now, folks, I know.

Dr Blake: 5:41

I almost don't have enough routes for everybody now, hey, that's good. The people who don't have a route would just say go for it. Yeah, just go.

Joel: 5:48

Come on over, you guys, we're going to get started. Come on over. If you haven't signed up yet, you can sign up later. I'll let them know this is an amazing turnout for the hot sun.

Collector: 6:00

Thanks everybody for coming. My name is.

Joel: 6:01

Joel.

Dr Blake: 6:02

Caldwell.

Joel: 6:02

I'm one of the founders of the Marsh Project, along with Blake and the other Blake with the big beard over there, if you don't know, we'll do a little spiel here.

Joel: 6:11

So the Marsh Project is the Marsh Appreciation Restoration Society for Happiness and we've kind of adopted this creek here, halsey Creek, which is one of the last unfilled tidal creeks on the peninsula, and we're really interested. Our kind of main, main idea is that we want to establish an ecological corridor east west across the Charleston Peninsula here, so through Wagner Terrace, through the north central neighborhood and over to the east side. And yeah, we're interested in people planting native plants that support wildlife and pollinators. We we're interested in tree canopy, we're interested in basically a livable city that's good for wildlife and good for the citizens, good for people that live here as well. We're also just generally interested in connecting people to the salt marsh environment and the low country and having an understanding of when you live here you affect everything around you. So let's all be good stewards but let's have fun in the process. Thank you so much for coming. I'll hand it off to Blake here to talk about what we're going to do today.

Dr Blake: 7:10

This is our fourth annual cleanup in the neighborhood. It's part of the annual Beach River Sweep with DNR Department of Natural Resources and South Carolina Sea Grant. They've been doing it since 1988. It's also part of an international cleanup. We've had so much success over the last four years that my son can be barefoot now and I feel comfortable about it because we remove so much glass and material. So I really thank you over the last couple of years. You're actually going to have to work harder to find material now. So look for microplastics, look for little pieces of material in the marsh.

Dr Blake: 7:46

We've got 10 routes for you all because we realize now that we've done so well in this part of our project. We want to go more towards Rutledge and King Street, we want to get to North Central, we want to get to downtown and have more and more impacts. So hopefully that will. You know it's weird to say expand, but I want to expand that our neighborhoods are cleaner and healthier, not only for human beings but also for wildlife, for pollinators, for birds. Just a few days ago, three million birds passed over Charleston on their way migrating south. So we're doing this not just for us and our families, but also for other species.

Dr Blake: 8:24

I feel like it's a very fitting place to do this, because if you look across the Ashley River, here, that is Charlestown Landing. That's where our current predicament began in 1670, when the English settled here along with people from Africa and the Caribbean, enslaved, and so perhaps we can have a new beginning, starting on the river, perhaps on the other side. Because of this being part of the project with DNR and Sea Grant, we would like you to document the trash you find. So there's data forms on the table over there everybody's favorite part. Yeah, this is not exactly the most exciting part, except for the person who does the data you know you're like. At least you don't have to bend over briefly. But what we're trying to see is change over time in these marshes and and we're seeing that it is improving and by doing that we create a record that we can go to policymakers, city officials and say support these efforts. So please try to document what you're finding thank you everybody.

Joel: 9:22

Thank you for coming. Hi Lily, how are you Good, I know gotta watch what I say. It's funny that we we all have two kids under five each of us, you know so it's just like a madhouse of a time to start anything. Okay, they're going to hold down the fort. I'm paying LP. You make her earn her money. Oh, are you really? That's a great idea. I'm going to pay her 20 bucks for an hour.

Joel: 9:56

Oh, should I offer to pay her 20 more? Yeah, would you want to hang with LP here? Can I pick you up until Mom gets here? You want to hang with LP here? Can I pick you up until Mom gets here?

AJ: 10:09

Yeah, then we can walk and talk and pick up trash once we offload.

Joel: 10:12

Maybe don't touch that, okay, because that's Anthony's. It's kind of fragile, I think. Find some good trash out there. Yeah, we found plastic and glass and a lighter.

AJ: 10:26

Hey, all right, we're walking. I'll chuck this back on you then, Sure, that's fine. Yeah, cool, thank you.

Dr Blake: 10:29

I got, I purchased a little bit of time. Yeah, literally.

AJ: 10:36

We all know what each other's talking about basically.

Dr Blake: 10:39

So this is your regeneration.

AJ: 10:41

Yeah, exactly this one might be less faded. Oh, I see there we go, you've got some good mileage on

Dr Blake: 10:46

there. Yeah, I was just showing my students the other day these coral reef restoration projects in the Florida Keys. Really, because 90% of the reef has died over the last 30 years. No, yeah, it's terrible, absolutely terrible In my lifetime I grew up diving there and everything. It's really sad to see.

AJ: 11:02

I dive on the Australian reefs too, and you know half of the Great Barrier Reef. That's sad.

Joel: 11:07

Yeah 90% Half of the Great Barrier Reef.

Dr Blake: 11:10

Yeah, exactly, but they've learned to essentially farm coral reefs.

Joel: 11:14

But has it been successful?

Dr Blake: 11:15

They've got a couple acres as a demonstration site and it's working.

AJ: 11:19

Is that right?

Dr Blake: 11:19

Yeah, yeah, it's really cool, what do you know? Because they've got like these Christmas tree skeleton designs and then the elk horn coral grows off of it and it's really beautiful, brilliant. It's going to happen in our lifetime. We're going to figure it out. It's just how many resources are people going to put towards it?

Joel: 11:39

But does it grow like a more resilient coral, you know? Because can't those bleaching events just keep happening as the water gets?

Dr Blake: 11:46

hotter. That's a good question. I think they're trying to pick particular species.

AJ: 11:50

Gotcha, and there'll be self-selection too.

Collector: 11:53

Nature's adjusting. It's pretty amazing.

AJ: 11:55

I've seen some things with coral, even where nature's responding. Like, there's a reef in the west Ningaloo Reef and there was a massive marine heatwave and this reef doesn't suffer from agricultural runoff and stuff, so it's doing pretty well all things considered. But this particular heatwave was huge and there was a lot of fear about it and it held up. So, yeah, nature's Well, unless we really push the ticket. Yeah, yeah, it's surprising us, as always.

Dr Blake: 12:21

Yeah, and there's a difference between our lifetime and ecological cycles.

AJ: 12:26

Yeah, that's it, that's it.

Dr Blake: 12:28

We would like to. We would like to live and see it.

AJ: 12:30

Yeah, right on.

Joel: 12:31

Yeah, so Blake and I met. We met maybe three, is it three years ago?

Dr Blake: 12:37

It's close to four years now, between three and four years yeah.

Joel: 12:47

Yeah, so we met four years ago and really just had this, you know, common interest in. You know, like I guess he taught about the environment through international studies, you know, in the commons and everything that he's been doing, and I'm, as a journalist and filmmaker, you know, kind of telling stories from all over the place, but we were both really very interested in telling stories locally, you know, and trying to get involved in some sort of grassroots effort, um, and and, just kind of. We had a million ideas but we also had young kids, so we would start like 50,000 strains of thought and finish none of them, as you can see, for good reason. You know, um, and and, but it was just kind of immediate. You know, I think that blake brought a lot of a lot of the fire to get this thing off the ground, a lot of the energy and and. Then we very quickly teamed up with blake suarez, who's a super talented graphic designer and he can make you look legit way before you deserve to be and

Joel: 13:43

so it's kind of a social media yeah and and so it's kind of just been. And then I think also this neighborhood, you know, is, uh, it's in the process of a turnover. You know, just a lot of young families are moving, moving in, and so it's kind of a really it's. It's just kind of a really cool opportunity, because people are sort of like. You know, if people are kind of like, oh, I now bought this little house and what do I do in my yard, and they're like, I guess they're either like well, I can do what my parents did, or but I'm not necessarily like committed to that Some people are, of course or I can do something totally different, you know.

Joel: 14:18

There we go, which is kind of like this, the opportunity that we feel, you know, know that we can kind of come in and influence people to Maybe do something at a moment that makes more sense.

AJ: 14:35

You put your thumb out. That's the way to get it more fun than us.

Collector: 14:37

Yeah, going straight to the wine bar, that's the way you parent.

Dr Blake: 14:44

We were at Holy City Brewing parenting thanks.

AJ: 14:49

So while we're on that, a bit of that context to the neighborhood. What's the historical backdrop that you're perceiving a shift in now?

Dr Blake: 14:58

well, there's been many waves for this neighborhood. Before it was a neighborhood, it was a plantation, it was an agricultural zone dependent on slavery.

AJ: 15:10

This was a major thoroughfare for that.

Dr Blake: 15:13

There was a main plantation house on 350 acres. It was called the Grove Plantation and there was quite a bit of citrus and and uh, nuts, you know. They had fruit trees and pecan trees, things like that. It was almost like a gentleman's estate, it wasn't. They weren't like producing a whole lot for commercial purposes because it was super close to downtown charleston, so it was. You could step outside the city limits and get fresh air here.

Joel: 15:44

So they had horses, if you were able to go where you wanted, yeah yeah, if you're essentially the white person who owned the plantation.

Dr Blake: 15:51

So there was that history. For several hundred years it was indigenous lands. Before that it was controlled by the Kiowa people until English colonization and they were essentially chased out south. We have an island named after them, but there are no people who are Kiowa descent there.

Dr Blake: 16:10

And that's the 1600s 1600s, into the 1700s, between 1670 and 1715, they went through that entire transformation from being indigenous to some contacts with european powers mostly merchants and sailors to being a colonial settler society depending on slave labor. Um, and so that was for several hundred years. And then the civil war. The civil war you probably heard the story begins in charleston. The first shots are fired, um, from right, yeah, down at fort sumter, yeah, just a few miles from here. And this became a military encampment during the confederacy and they had a prisoner of war camp in the neighborhood and union soldiers were held there and starved to death.

Dr Blake: 17:02

Wow, there's unmarked graves a few blocks from where we are now, and many people say it was the site of the first Memorial Day in Charleston in May 1865. Because when the Union soldiers came in in the Massachusetts 54th All Black Regiment, they honored the dead and you know it was the end of slavery for for the south, but obviously race and all those issues continued. And then eventually, boy, this is a long, this is a long question. You know, we've documented all this story and so let me, let me take a a pause for a second and say, joel, and I really believe, like for people to care about a place. They got to know all the layers of the story because then they can feel the richness and the significance like think of all the people and all the things that have happened here.

Dr Blake: 17:51

This is the story of the world in one neighborhood it will sit and so you need to take care of that and you know, honor it and be honest about it. And be honest, yeah, it's not just sort of whitewashing it, but what, yeah, give them give them some history more recently yeah.

Dr Blake: 18:06

So then, um, by 1901, 1902, the south is trying to rebuild itself, still out of the civil war, and there's a lot of expansion from the united states into the caribbean and charleston wants to be like the main southern port for us expansion further south into the tropics.

Dr Blake: 18:24

So they organized this exposition called the South Carolina Interstate and West India Exposition. Not unlike what happened in Chicago or New York with the World's Fair, they're going to show, like all the industry, all the potential. And this was not a neighborhood yet, it was still that plantation, and they built the exposition in this neighborhood and there were all these really um, what's the right? Gilded buildings, right, yeah, they were made of, um, this type of, uh, plaster that was not meant to last, but they look like the white house, you know, really yeah, with big pillars, and there was the agriculture building and the machinery building and the entertainment building and restaurants and there was gondola rides on the creek. They dammed the creek and turned it into a lake and called it lake juanita and theater. President theodore roosevelt came here for the exposition and mark twain came and booker t washington.

Dr Blake: 19:22

There were 600 000 visitors who came to this exposition and it lasted a little over six months, and then they tore all the buildings down really and uh sold off what was left of the lumber millions of feet of lumber, you know wiped out our many of our pine forests for us, for this exposition, and then it sat vacant for another 17-something years. And then they decided to do Charleston's first suburb, which is the neighborhood we now live in, called Wagner Terrace, platted out in 1919. All the streets, the lots, all of our homes are based on that 1919. And it was originally um an immigrant neighborhood, um, like middle-class immigrants, greeks, italians, a lot of jews. Uh, it was a big jewish neighborhood, um, because they weren't really allowed in the blue blood, you know old school english, yeah, anglican episcopalian circles, so they had to sort of be on the outskirts.

Dr Blake: 20:28

You know they weren't black but they weren't white, yeah so they had their own neighborhood and it lasted like that for several decades and it was. At some point it became predominantly jewish and the first conservative synagogue in charleston is in this was in this neighborhood and then desegregation happens in the 60s and 70s and the jewish community and all those immigrant communities who are now like second, third generation, they go out to the sub, the further suburbs off the peninsula and this was probably being absorbed right into the city of Charleston kind of at that point.

Joel: 21:03

Yeah, West Ashley.

Dr Blake: 21:05

More downtown. Yeah, and downtown became at some point more predominantly black. It was like 70-30 black-white.

Joel: 21:12

So desegregation all over the country. Right, there's this history of okay well, if we all have to go to school together, then we're out of here, and so the white flight happens, and so the white people move out like the actual suburbs and take all the wealth with them, and usually the inner city schools fall apart. And that's also in the phenomenon of okay well, we need to be able to get to these suburbs quickly, so we put in highways and the interstate is being built, and so lots of times those interstates go right through the middle of thriving African American neighborhoods.

Dr Blake: 21:43

Yeah, yeah. So there's not to get too deep into all that, it becomes an automobile society. Yeah yeah, but now we're experiencing what some folks will call gentrification, or urban renewal, and or bad all the things.

Collector: 21:59

Yeah.

Dr Blake: 22:02

It is not bad or good. It's good and bad's complicated right, and so this neighborhood is now attracting a lot of young families, predominantly white folks, many of them progressive ideals, coming from the north, really, or other places, or the west as the case may be, yeah yeah, west coast, but also a lot of like new jersey, new york, massachusetts, ohio, midwest and uh, property values have skyrocketed in the last 30 years now.

Dr Blake: 22:37

So we wreck. We recognize that there's this energy and it's not necessarily engaged with history, nor about with ecology, and so what we're doing is we're tapping in to that transformation and trying to change the values to get folks to say actually what the best thing about this neighborhood, in this area, is the river and the marsh. And historically, people turn their backs on the river and the marsh. They use the marsh to throw trash in it.

AJ: 23:02

Yeah, every generation use the marsh to throw trash in it.

Dr Blake: 23:04

Yeah, Every generation used the marsh to throw trash in it. They filled in the creeks to build roads and that's where the houses flood, and so we're trying to say go ahead.

Joel: 23:15

And Charleston also has. You know we're literally surrounded by water, with some of the most incredible ecology you know in North America. You know we're in the most incredible ecology you know in North America. You know we're in the Atlantic flyway, so birds are migrating from Antarctica, you know, all the way up. You know like all the way across the globe. You see the most incredible species here. But even though we're surrounded by that, it's really hard to access it in Charleston. Access to the water, I mean you can. There's like two or three restaurants where you can be on the water and they're all bad.

Joel: 23:43

You know like it's just, it's this bizarre sort of inward facing, I think, kind of like I don't know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's really interesting. So we're just trying, we just really want to like encourage people to, you know, like look around and and and and engage with, with the ecosystem, and especially at a time when, like I said earlier, you know, charleston now floods one in five days on average, and so it's like we really have to change the way we're doing things, you know so, yeah, let's just one in five.

AJ: 24:14

Hang on a minute, one in five days on average. Now come back to that. Yeah, so what's happening?

Joel: 24:20

I think when you say that charleston floods one in five days, you know it's it's, you know it's a lot of nuisance flooding it's a lot yeah, yeah people have. Historically, as blake was saying, you know you build your houses on what was formerly a tidal creek it's always trying to be a tidal creek again, especially when you if it was filled a year or 100 years ago or something, when it was filled with basically organic matter, which is turning into soil, you know, and things are continuing to settle um.

Joel: 24:48

So a lot of that is just that we have not respected what is historically high ground, you know, and we have thought we can, just we can. I don't know if this is an international term, but the united states we talk about reclaimed yeah, we do too, but it's not actually reclaimed, it's just that we're taking, we're taking land that was is supposed to be underwater, yeah, and we're making it dry and we're building upon it.

Joel: 25:11

And so, with increasing storm surge, with increasingly intense rainfall and storm events and hurricanes, with rising sea levels, I mean this is the low country. There is no elevation. I mean we're on some of the highest of it currently. And it's probably six or seven feet above sea level or something like that.

Dr Blake: 25:27

Yeah, yeah, why don't we go down to the creek? Yeah?

Joel: 25:29

Yeah, good idea.

Dr Blake: 25:30

Yeah, cool.

Joel: 25:31

So this is another. You know it's like okay, so what do we do? Do we all just in our backyards? Do we just keep getting rid of our plants and paving things, you know, putting more impervious surfaces on and then just like putting pumps that shoot the water out on the street? Well, if everybody does that, then you can't drive through these areas, you know. So we're just trying to get people to think about what's going on and kind of connect to it and see it as an opportunity, you know, to be like okay, these things are happening. How do we, you know, how do we embrace the changes that are happening? And you know, maybe plant, you know plants that are that can be high and dry for several months and then can be completely inundated with water for a week and they're still totally fine. You know, these are native plants that evolved here for thousands of years.

Dr Blake: 26:18

There we go. You know the other thing about when you got the historical layers, you quickly realize things have never stayed the same. Right, they've always been changing, yes, and we don't really want to be passive recipients of what the change is in the future. Well said, we want to guide it, you know, steward it or whatever you want, but influence it in some way, and to repair the relationship we have with the natural environment.

AJ: 26:44

So I'm really curious then how you started it and then how that path led to such an enormous response from people and across demographics.

Joel: 26:56

it sounds like, yeah, I mean you know, I think I think there is kind of a latent eagerness in people of our age. You know we talk about that. We felt like there was this kind of like hunger for something like this you did feel that yeah, we did feel like this and I also think it needs to be.

Joel: 27:14

You know, it kind of has to be and I don't want to knock the Sierra Club or any of you know, like any of these um, much more established organizations that I love and I'm a financial supporter of, you know, but like you, to reach people my age and obviously people half my age, you know it kind of it helps if the message feels like it's crafted for them, you know, and so just kind of, I think, especially through our co-founder, blake Suarez. You know it's like we can. We can. This is about fun. This isn't about being angry environmentalists. It's not about being reactionary, this is about, I mean so our the Marsh Project is an acronym, it's the Marsh Appreciation Restoration Society for Happiness, and that is the idea. It's like we don't want to just be angry all the time. You know, like the stakes are high, yes, but like let's not all be miserable. You know, like let's have fun doing this.

Joel: 28:04

Like let's pick up as much trash as we can until we're too tired, and then let's go eat pizza and drink a couple of beers, you know, because, like it's just fun to build community, you know. In that regard. So I think that we maybe just being able to craft like a hopeful, exciting, you know, roll up your sleeves, kind of.

AJ: 28:29

The starting point. What was the starting point? We?

Dr Blake: 28:31

went for a walk, really, yeah, and you told people.

Dr Blake: 28:34

Joel organized it. He said hey, you know we've had these conversations between parenting. I want you to meet Blake Suarez. Let's go down to the creek talk about some ideas. We saw a bunch of birds. You know we were just shooting the shit. Really, yeah, just having fun playing, taking know tiny micro break from parenting. And all of a sudden it's like all right, let's do a cleanup. Oh, and why don't we come up with a name for our group as we clean up? And oh, wait a second, why don't we do a few of these other things? And we're doing it as we're parenting. And so who? Who wants to parent and look at the world as a piece of shit?

Dr Blake: 29:15

You know I want my kids to enjoy life and to feel joyful and come down and see this, not feel like we're all sinking and dying.

Joel: 29:24

That we're just like closing our eyes and not doing anything. Yeah, we want this to be. It's beautiful.

AJ: 29:29

It is beautiful.

Dr Blake: 29:31

And we, you know, yeah, there are. The sea level is going to continue to rise, maybe a foot over the next couple of decades, maybe more. But there are things we can do to slow that process and to be able to stay here. And to make room for other species as well.

AJ: 29:47

Yeah.

Dr Blake: 29:48

This is a historical marker we got put in. We had a block party here and a bunch of food trucks and uh, historical reenactment, um really you guys did that too.

Joel: 29:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that's part of it. You know, it was like we just want to be, we want to have humor. You know, like we want to like. You know, like, I think, especially in the face of you know what seems like long odds or you know something that's really kind of overwhelming.

Joel: 30:15

As far as the challenge which, if you look at climate change directly, I think it can feel like that I feel like people have always reacted with humor, those that have been successful, you know, I think that's a big part of it. So you know, yeah, so we, so we, we always try to have like. So the historical we had this historical um reenactment, you could say, where a guy canoed in on, actually on a bicycle and was dropped off and he was the English general that had stormed Charleston during the Revolutionary War. You know, we're actually in the, we're just kind of beginning shooting like a mockumentary of the Marsh Project, which is going to be set like 30 years in the future and we'll all have, like you know, super gray hair and we'll be, we'll be looking back about how the marsh project established the ecological corridor, you know so just trying to like just to like, make it fun for ourselves as well 100.

AJ: 31:06

That's fun, but it's also visionary. So which is a big part, big piece too. I guess you hold that, that it's a possibility that you can see.

Joel: 31:15

Yeah, and that's like telling, telling. Telling a story, even if it's like kind of tongue in cheek, but telling a story as some, how we did this is, I mean, subliminally right. It's like, but it's been done and it will happen.

AJ: 31:27

You know, I think there's power in that. That's that story piece, right.

Dr Blake: 31:30

You know and you mobilize it for action, because this stretch we're on now 10th Avenue this was a trash dump. People would leave their trash here, Dog poop everywhere. It was totally neglected. We got a sign in Nobody in the contemporary of the neighborhood, the contemporaries of the neighborhood, they didn't know the name of the creek. So we raised that awareness and now we're going to do a native plant walk here and we got the city to to buy into that. The neighborhood association's putting money up, we raise the funds and so you walk down here and you'll learn about native plants and how to regenerate landscapes so there'll be interpretive sort of signage like this be a smaller scale yeah, yeah, qr codes yeah, learn about plants that you can put in your own yard.

Dr Blake: 32:12

There's a lot of things you can do, eh.

Joel: 32:14

Be part of the ecological corridor.

Dr Blake: 32:15

Become a member.

Joel: 32:16

And then we're also. The guy Michael from Department of Natural Resources was here, but at the mouth of the creek we're going to do an oyster reef restoration.

AJ: 32:26

Really.

Joel: 32:31

Yeah, so you can. They collect you know all the oysters that come through the restaurants and then you kind of put them in these wire cages and you set them out at the reef or at the mouth and spat, you know, like baby oyster, recruit onto that shell that you've, that you've reestablished, and then it grows an oyster reef and that is like I mean, it's incredibly, it's like the. You know it's one of the most diverse biodiverse habitats, at least in this part of the world. You know it creates, cleans, cleans all of this water. There's so many positives that come from that, as well as preventing storm surge.

AJ: 33:04

It's one of these like green solutions as opposed to just building seawalls.

Dr Blake: 33:08

Yes, if we could, if we could restore the health of this creek and it's not, it's doing pretty well, even over the last couple years of our efforts. We can. We saw a beaver, hey, rosie. At spoonbills, bald eagles animals are coming back, yeah, um. And there are a few, very few tidal creeks left on the peninsula. There are only three left that were not filled in and and this is one of them and if we can make this a pilot project or a demonstration, we can hopefully say to other communities and the city and officials like you, plant native plants, you clean up the trash, you reduce your inputs in terms of chemicals and you can restore these spaces.

AJ: 33:46

Yeah, they come back.

Dr Blake: 33:48

Yeah, it's not rocket science, yeah.

Joel: 33:50

And even if it was rocket science, we'd figure it out. Everybody benefits, everybody benefits, right? Everybody benefits, yeah, so that's the other thing I'm interested in the people that have come in like?

AJ: 33:57

does it reach right into the community? Are there? Are there folks missing what stood out on that front?

Joel: 34:04

yeah, I mean I'm always just, I'm always just amazed at the, at the support, I mean the people that show up on like a hot afternoon evening like this to pick up garbage and I don't know how many people that that was. But I mean there was like well over 50, that's for sure, yeah, I mean, I'm just amazed that.

Joel: 34:20

you know we have book clubs, you know we have people come down and speak, we have film screenings. You know, like it's people just come and it's like if you need somebody, our friends that have a photo studio called silver hill studio they're like, oh, do it here free of charge, like come Really. Yeah, I just feel like the community just supports you know, really, I feel like the only limit is our time because we all have our day jobs and we have young kids you know this is not a salaried position.

Dr Blake: 34:49

We're all just volunteering.

AJ: 34:51

Yeah, and so that's the limit limit. Do more people take some responsibility on?

Dr Blake: 34:55

yeah, if we walk this way, we can see even some of the the neighbors who've planted native plants in their yard. Hey, um, that's the idea is like. I feel like joel is particularly skilled at this and blake suarez is. You know, how do you? How do you tap in to influence people to join some sort of belief or value system? Right, I do that in the university, but it's very structured, yes, and I like their captured audience where you're you're you're pretty good about like.

Dr Blake: 35:24

I guess that's the reality of being a freelance. Right, you gotta, you gotta find your audience, yeah right so we're sort of combining our skill sets in terms of content.

Joel: 35:34

So the idea here is that this is our first 10th ave here where we're going to be able to do that native planting. That's really our first opportunity to do that on city land, and so the majority. If we want to establish a corridor from the Ashley River to the Cooper River, it's going to need to be yard by yard right, and so it's going to have to be public buying, but also, like that's how things are, sustainable, right yeah, if it's like a top-down thing, you can make some progress of course and that's and it's that's worth doing in my opinion, but if you can actually have the conversations, the kind of tough conversations, because anytime you're asking somebody to change the way they do things in their own yard.

Dr Blake: 36:12

Right, that's a very personal thing, is that yeah?

Joel: 36:14

it's a very personal thing, but if you how's it going?

Dr Blake: 36:16

guys, conversations and you finding stuff. Okay, thank you. Do you? What's your next stop? Do you know? I think this is our final so go to 10th here, check out that area, because you'll get a good sense of the creek and everything. And then, uh, if you have time, walk all the way to grafton. We'll have pizza is that down, yeah racing

AJ: 36:39

king street right yep, exactly hey you guys yeah, I'm hosting an australian podcast. Yeah, because this is such a cool story. Can I ask you why you are involved in this?

Collector: 36:50

um, I mean, I just like helping, helping out, you know, I just thought that I mean my friend, he is in this environmental studies class and they're, you know, just doing this as a little project and he invited me and I was like, yeah, that sounds awesome.

Collector: 37:03

And you this is my neighborhood, wagner Terrace. I live here, so I figured this clean up trash around here, trying to make my neighborhood look a bit better and also kind of get to know it better, because I don't really walk around here too often, I kind of just go straight downtown.

AJ: 37:15

so well, apparently it gets me more way of the land. Yeah, brilliant. And how did? How did you find out about it?

Joel: 37:21

the project. Yeah, yeah, you're in the college.

AJ: 37:24

You guys are in the college, all right, yeah this is the reality of a university.

Dr Blake: 37:27

There's this great line um about universities and cities and it goes something like if you want to, if you want to have a great city, build a great university and wait 200 years. So I don't know where we're at in that 200 year scale, but we're getting, we're getting there. You know, there we go because college of charleston has gotten a lot better over the last couple decades and these, all of them, are students there.

AJ: 37:49

That's brilliant yeah, what was your name? I'm alex grace. Great to meet you guys. Thanks very much. So it's called the regeneration, that's it.

Collector: 37:59

Thank you, yeah, you bet.

Dr Blake: 38:00

Thank you. You too, isaiah. Come join us for pizza. Take it easy, guys. Thank you. Which way are we going? Blake, let's go back this way, because I got to collect Levi. Oh, okay, yeah, cool. But that is the nice thing is like the students they sign up for classes because they want to learn, but they don't know what they don't know quite yet. So you get to.

Joel: 38:21

You get to choreograph it to a certain degree. I think so many of us are shaped by a great teacher we had at some point right I mean I grew up in a very insular rural community. You know, and I had one in particular amazing teacher in high school and it just kind of like made me aware of what's possible and that was Washington State.

AJ: 38:42

Yeah, yeah, it's certainly true for me and similarly it was. It was a professor who got out there in the world.

Collector: 38:50

Right.

AJ: 38:50

Yeah, so I hear that. What about you, blake? Did you have someone that triggered thinking in you, or even teaching, like someone that really stood out in your life, on your path? You?

Dr Blake: 38:59

know I grew up in Florida and I didn't really like being inside very much, yeah, so I was always on a kayak or a canoe or some sort of boat and I just that was my place of peace, and I sort of lost track of that through the hustle and bustle of you know, trying to strive for something in life. But it was always there and I think I came back to it. Hi, how y'all doing we?

Joel: 39:28

have a lot of stuff over there. Oh look where you've been Nicely done Some diving. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff.

Dr Blake: 39:34

We were going Ooh, look where you've been.

AJ: 39:35

Nicely done. Some diving. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff. We were going to come back and get it, or?

Joel: 39:39

I guess y'all it's like too much for us to carry Amazing.

Dr Blake: 39:41

Can we just leave it there for a bit? Yeah, you can leave it there and we'll pick it up.

AJ: 39:47

Can I take a photo of you?

Collector: 39:48

Yeah, we found a broken shoe. What's your name? I'm Ben Nice to meet you, ben Anthony this will go on a podcast.

AJ: 39:57

That's the name of it. You're the mud person. You're the mud person.

Joel: 40:03

Swimming, swimming in the plough mode. Well done, outstanding.

Collector: 40:07

Look at me, hey yesha. Only because I fell into the mud a couple of times.

AJ: 40:15

But not really familiar I slipped on a log. Hi Anthony Sally, Hi Sally, nice to meet you, dude, dude, nice to meet you, nice to meet you.

Collector: 40:23

You just emerged like a swamp thing Covered in giant trash yeah.

Joel: 40:28

Just left it all. We'll come back and get it. You guys are amazing.

Dr Blake: 40:32

Nice job.

Joel: 40:34

Thank you, how's it going?

Collector: 40:36

Yeah, good.

Joel: 40:36

All right, you're having fun, you're meeting the locals.

AJ: 40:39

Yeah, it is the best way to get around the country, I tell you. But yeah, when you watch your little one, embrace it like that, yeah.

Joel: 40:46

It's so cool that you guys are doing this.

AJ: 40:48

It's just again, we don't have to do anything. It's just like there you go, go forth, have fun well done same stuff.

Dr Blake: 40:56

Yeah, but you were saying blake, oh well, I, you know my academic background or wanting to be like a researcher and a writer came through history. I loved, I loved history. I was raised by my grandmother, who was born in 1913, who would talk about the great depression in world war ii and when she remembered sound and movie theaters. So I always had like a historical feel for things and so I pursued that in my career. And then you know, you pay attention in the world and I got into us foreign relations um, a lot of latin american, caribbean history, because of growing up in florida and what was going on with us foreign policy, with 9-11 and you know, just coming to awareness that the United States

Dr Blake: 41:39

had been acting like an empire. Yeah, nobody told me about this. Yeah, until until I dug into it, and so I was a researcher and a writer, like that. And, um, I think I just got old. You know, they they say this thing about you get older and you all want to be birders. You know, happened to me, man, so I was always interested in this changing dynamic between humans and the environment and I was pretty negative about it, like plantation monoculture and, you know, overthrowing the democratically elected government of Guatemala for bananas with terrible things. This is where I used to live, so I can relate to this path. Yeah, so it was pretty, you know, negative and I wanted to. I wanted to think about something alternatively, you know, like you could be aware of all the piles of shit, really, and then use it to fertilise something else.

AJ: 42:33

What are you gonna do? Yeah, you brought it by your grandma. Come back to that. How did that happen?

Dr Blake: 42:39

oh well, um, she was widowed pretty young, um, and my parents were working all the time, so I was with her almost all most days and, uh, were your folks doing professional? Yeah, my my, they always believed in service. Uh, my dad was a medical doctor, my mom was a nurse and they always were committed to, like, doing something for the community and and so I had a. It was a high regard for education yeah community service, but I didn't know what that was going to look like.

AJ: 43:12

What about your folks, joe?

Joel: 43:15

Yeah, so my dad is well, he's retired, but he was a pharmacist and he owned one of I don't know, maybe 10 businesses in the little town I grew up in in southwest Washington state Wow, I don't know the exact number and my mom, you know, worked in, worked in that business as well as being a school nurse, and I'm one of four, so I spent a lot of time raising us, you know.

Joel: 43:40

But yeah, I think for me it's interesting because I grew up playing a ton of sports, you know, spending a ton of time inside of gyms in a dark, wet, rainforest environment, but grew up in a logging town, you know where, literally in the bar, there was a bumper sticker on the beer cooler that said earth first will log the other planets later, you know? And, and so it certainly is not, you know, it was not like permeating my community to be an environmentalist, that was not the case. But then my larger family my mom has seven brothers, and they had traveled all over the world, you know, on motorcycles and bicycles and hitchhiking and stuff, and so there was, though I lived in this, I grew up in kind of this small, insular but great community. Um, you know, I did have some idea of what was happening, you know. But but I definitely, you know, I grew up in a clear cut. It had probably been clear cut two or three times and I had no understanding until probably until after college, that like, oh, forests aren't supposed to be, or these forests aren't supposed to be so thick that you can't walk through them. It's just that if you cut everything to the ground all at once, like you know, it would take I don't know 100 or more years of succession to make it even begin to resemble what it used to look like. You know.

Joel: 44:54

And so I think, yeah, for me.

Joel: 44:56

I just I was a total late bloomer and it took a long time and I was lucky enough to be able to continue to pursue what I was interested in and that has always been kind of how we relate to landscapes, you know, and how it changes the way we live and, in particular, this kind of idea of changing baseline syndrome.

Joel: 45:14

You know the fact that, like each generation wakes up, comes to in this more um, you know, this is kind of this like more things of the tapestry have been kind of unwound and we recognize that as the way things are supposed to be and that dictates the way we love our lives, when, if you can start, like through understanding what things used to be, also in a social context, but definitely an environment, environmental context right, you can. You can start to understand that, you know, and it shouldn't lead, in my opinion, just to cynicism but you can start to understand that like, okay, this is not the way things are supposed to be. And then there's such an opportunity for regeneration. There's such an opportunity for regeneration, there's such an opportunity for ecological restoration.

Joel: 45:58

You know and so many of these things aren't complicated. You know, Like you just have to slow water and get it to go down into the ground and build soil.

Joel: 46:06

It's good for everybody. But the barriers, you know, the main barrier, I think, is that people just aren't interested in change. We latch and I see this all the time as an environmental journalist, you know we latch on to the way things were, even if it makes no sense, even if it's not good for us, and so it's kind of like a fun game actually at this point to try to find ways to get people to be open to positive change.

AJ: 46:34

Well, this is really interesting then. So you've got a sort of a macro perspective on resistance to change, but you've got a micro experience where people have clamored towards it. So how do you reconcile what are? What's the difference? How can it be so? Because this is what I find too right. It's so interesting to me because if you're watching the tv or reading the articles, the big picture you can think oh man, we're just as many do we're stuffed.

Joel: 47:01

Yeah.

AJ: 47:01

But you get stuck in hands-on on the ground with people Right and it's a different story and I've seen this all across the States. Yeah, oh, yeah, so what do you observe in that paradox?

Joel: 47:15

Yeah, serving that paradox yeah, I think, first and foremost, it's like stop listening to the pundits, right. I mean we need to be, we need to know what's going on. I'm not saying just like fill our ears full of dirt and don't pay attention, but like we have such an addiction to bad news, especially in this country. I mean this is where a lot of the news comes from, right? This is where a lot of the media is made hollywood right and it's. It's all negative primarily. Yeah, I would guess like 99 percent, right even if it's good, it's negativity bias, exactly.

Joel: 47:38

It's violent, it's, it's, it's yeah, it's just like how do you grab people and they can't turn away? As well, we scare them, I think, essentially, you know. So first you have to unhook yourself from that. I'm pretty careful about what I consume as far as media and storytelling, but then, but, but, then, but. Then I think you, just like I, I have my personal experience is that I wasn't surrounded by environmentalists and there there is this biophilia, there is this love of nature, there is this love, this awe that we feel, you know, when we're around it, and I think we can lean into that, you know, we can lean into, like, our natural love of of our home planet, you know.

Joel: 48:13

And so I think that's kind of where it begins, you know. And then I think, as where the rubber hits the road, you know, is like when people are really forced to change, they will change, people will change, you know, and I think that they can change for the better. And so my storytelling has really focused and what we try to focus on with the Mars Project right, is highlighting the positives. You know, we don't want to just and I'm glad there's people out there policing industry and doing all that. That's essential. We have to do that.

Joel: 48:37

But I find, like my calling and I think our something that we really want to do is to like tell the hopeful story. Not hopeful like sit on the couch with your fingers crossed, but like let's do things that can make a positive change right here. Things that can make a positive change right here. You know, you can pull up your yard in this subtropical environment and in one year, in three months, it can be full of butterflies and beneficial moths and you know, I mean like in your life and you see your kids eyes light up and it can just be so incredibly positive. You know it's better for everybody and and then people see you enjoy that and it spreads, you know, and so I think that's like the kind of stuff that I mean that's.

Joel: 49:14

I mean, that's a very, very micro level, right, but that's like how positive change happens it seems to be the theme, isn't it?

AJ: 49:19

it's get your hands dirty, metaphorically, literally, like yeah just get involved in less abstract ways with each other, because that's the other thing I take stock of. Even the young people relatively most of them, anyway and some very young people that we just passed, and multicultural at that, have come in. So there's a diverse lot of people in this place with diverse and sometimes, yeah complex histories absolutely that are animated by this right yeah, yeah, it gives them agency.

Dr Blake: 49:56

You know they don't have to wait for somebody else to change some law or regulation. They just you go pick up a piece of trash or you plant something or you read something about your community and that has tangible implications to it. Right, you know it's grassroots, you know the roots really makes sense when you're talking about ecological restoration yeah, the roots yeah yeah, like you got to change the grassroots yeah that's right.

AJ: 50:23

It's almost too obvious to yeah to to realize it's a breakthrough insight. Yeah, this is beautiful yeah, that's great.

Dr Blake: 50:33

Yeah, we walk this route all the time, really yeah, you know where I'm from.

AJ: 50:37

In perth it was similarly reclaimed land. The whole city was wetland, right into the north where my family set up, and the river, the swan river, a whole bunch of that bank, was considered too smelly and whatever, yeah, for our sensibilities. So we filled it in and put a, put a stone wall there, type of thing, yeah. So I relate in the sense that we've got very little like you could go, man, we destroyed 95 of it. What are we going to do? But what's there is there and people are taking care of it and it's it's coming back too.

AJ: 51:11

So, yeah, and inspiration from your, the story of how you're envisaging the connection piece right to literally come from a chain of urban dwellings like an urban neighborhood right that we can do that.

Joel: 51:25

Right, and and one of the cool things about the connectivity component of that which dr scott talks about is that you know, if we can make, if we can, if we can get this idea through to have an ecological corridor that's all about connectivity then there's not an opportunity to just leave out the less fortunate people, right? Because if we need connection through that part of town and so what we do maybe on the more affluent side will be reflected on the other side, because that's the function of the entire thing, right? You?

Dr Blake: 51:54

need, you need, you need, uh, continuous tree canopy cover regardless of one socioeconomic level.

AJ: 51:59

If it's very interesting, because I was just I've just been in baltimore and the disparity in neighborhoods is off the charts. Like I'm talking boarded up, broken up houses on the other side. That's neglected, yeah, they're just left to it. Here's our co-conspirator, hey, hey.

Joel: 52:17

Hey let's cut, let's remove everything we just were saying about this guy, how you doing.

Dr Blake: 52:22

Hi Agnes, Did you see anybody down there?

Collector: 52:24

Yeah, LB Is Levi okay, yeah, he's good Okay all right, cool that you able to come to the craft at all.

Dr Blake: 52:32

I don't think so sadly. Okay, thanks.

Joel: 52:35

Blake's wife's out of town.

Collector: 52:36

So he's solo dad of two. Yeah, that's for her to.

Joel: 52:40

We found a lot of others, and Harriet and Alice found some oyster seashells Ooh.

Dr Blake: 52:48

Cool, I draw. Oh really, this is just my tie, is it okay?

Joel: 52:52

I is just my tie. No, that's not a tie, it's a microphone.

Collector: 52:55

Anthony, here's recording us talking.

Joel: 52:57

That's not a microphone.

AJ: 53:00

It's hard to believe, isn't it?

Dr Blake: 53:02

Well, I should probably go relieve LP.

AJ: 53:03

It's really good to meet you guys.

Dr Blake: 53:05

You know, part of the thing about growing up in Florida was also seeing how much it was changing Really yeah like the population more than tripled in my lifetime is changing really like, yeah, like the population more than tripled in my lifetime, so places that where we used to go fish or play in wetlands or forests became suburbs.

Collector: 53:19

That was something, yeah, in perth.

Dr Blake: 53:20

Yeah, and you know that that creates an edge, but honestly, working in community can make you feel more joyful about what you've, what you've seen it's something in itself, isn't it that joy? Piece. Yeah, it's very important because it's not easy, um, but to be a good parent you know, yeah I agree to be a community member. Yeah, I don't want to. You don't want to.

Joel: 53:45

I don't want to be an old person who just looks back in the world and be like what the hell do we do 100 yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr Blake: 53:51

Yeah, be a joyful. I don't want to say warrior, but in a way it's a battle yeah, because not everybody's in total agreement, but we're getting more and more.

AJ: 54:02

Which is interesting.

Dr Blake: 54:02

Yeah.

AJ: 54:03

And you know if you take a broad view pretty fast.

Dr Blake: 54:06

I'd say it's a big shift. Yeah, Because I think people began to. They tapped into the climate change narrative.

Collector: 54:12

Yeah, I think people began to.

Joel: 54:13

They tapped into the climate change narrative and they're like this makes sense, but I can't do anything about that. So then they're sort of sitting on their hands, you know getting mad about it, and then people come and say well, you can create biodiversity for a livable climate.

AJ: 54:30

You know yeah.

Dr Blake: 54:34

Like that's the main source of carbon sequestration. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's life, biotic life so it's interesting you have healthier oceans, healthier waters, healthier landscapes it's interesting, how that narrative too is catching on yeah as opposed to climates out there yeah, because it was way too 30 000000. Yeah, and now it's. Now it's getting closer.

Collector: 54:54

I'll say oh yeah, what can I?

Dr Blake: 54:55

specifically do besides like reduce your carbon footprint?

Collector: 54:59

Yeah, which is, which is?

Dr Blake: 55:00

Possible. Yeah but not always very easy. Yeah, when you're on a grid.

AJ: 55:04

Well, exactly, yeah, all sorts of grids, all sorts of social grids that are very difficult to understand.

Dr Blake: 55:09

Yeah, fine, yeah.

AJ: 55:14

Cool, understand and find points of our action.

Joel: 55:15

Here we go really Viva Cool.

AJ: 55:16

Cool, good to see you, great to meet you, you too, man. Yeah, kudos to you guys, thank you.

Joel: 55:20

Yeah, here's your son.

Dr Blake: 55:23

That's good. I'm glad he's still here. He's still here boy, phew, hey Levi.

Collector: 55:29

Hey, buddy there we go.

Dr Blake: 55:31

Did you have fun watch the roots? Good job lp.

AJ: 55:36

Yeah, kid loves the marsh all right, you guys thanks, yeah, thanks, blake yeah, thank you very much to you guys for your interest now let's just talk about yourself.

AJ: 55:51

That was joel caldwell, r Blake Scott and friends on the marsh in Charleston. I can tell you that since we met they've gone from strength to strength. That's why I'd held back on this episode. I'd been thinking to add a little bonus episode, but the updates just kept coming. So in the end I'm running it now and Joel and I will just pick a time in the next weeks for an update. So stand by for that. In the meantime, I've put a bunch of photos on the website and, of course, various links in the show notes, including to Joel's terrific film and substack. As usual, I'll have more for paid subscribers on Patreon and Substack soon. In great thanks for making it all possible. You can join this generous community of listeners by heading to the website or the show notes and following the prompts. Thank you so very much. The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening.

Joel: 56:50

Thank you. You should talk to this guy that's doing the podcast. He's over there with hayley, says. Anthony has this podcast called regen narration cool, he's from perth, um, but they've been traveling around the United States. For those are like authentic Australians. Yeah yeah, fucking Brisbane, sydney, east Coast bullshit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're from. Perth. Yeah, you're like Mad Max. Yeah, exactly.