How to Build a Better World

Summary

Podcast Summary: All Of It - "How to Build a Better World"

Release Date: June 12, 2025
Host: Alison Stewart
Guest: Adam Met, Musician, Academic, Climate Activist, and Author

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1. Introduction

In this episode of ALL OF IT, hosted by Alison Stewart, the spotlight is on Adam Met, a multifaceted individual known for his contributions to music, academia, climate activism, and his latest endeavor as an author. The episode delves into Adam's newly released book, "How to Use the Power of Connection to Engage, Take Action, and Build a Better World," offering listeners a comprehensive exploration of his insights on effective activism and community building.

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2. Adam Met Discusses His Book

a. Background and Motivation

Adam Met introduces his diverse background, emphasizing his journey from being a member of the band AJR to pursuing a PhD and becoming a climate activist. He shares the inspiration behind his book, which serves as a toolkit for emerging activists seeking to make impactful changes.

[04:26] Adam Met: "I liked to do so many different things when I was a kid. People say nowadays they love portfolio careers. I had a portfolio childhood, honestly. I loved theater. I loved music... I love doing 50 things at the same time."

Adam explains that his experiences on tour, witnessing firsthand the effects of climate change in various cities, motivated him to leverage his platform for activism.

[05:10] Adam Met: "Seeing these things firsthand... made me realize that it was something I loved studying and also that I had to use the platform that we had built."

b. Key Concepts

Adam outlines the core components of his book, which include:

• Identifying Personal Passions: Helping individuals discover causes they care deeply about.
• Engagement Strategies: Offering a blueprint for gaining support and mobilizing communities.
• Practical Tools: Including interviews and stories from diverse figures such as Andrew Yang, Chi O Se, and Glenn Beck.

He emphasizes the importance of connection and community in driving meaningful change.

[16:49] Adam Met: "As a musician, one of the things that we care about the most is how to move people through emotional resonance... we need to take that model and apply it to building better movements."

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3. Listener Calls and Activism

Throughout the episode, Alison Stewart invites listeners to share their passions and how they contribute to various causes. Several callers provide inspiring examples of grassroots activism:

a. Plastic Reduction Efforts

Chrysanthe from North Salem discusses her initiative to combat plastic waste by creating large-scale art installations from collected plastic debris.

[09:28] Chrysanthe: "I made an enormous... plastic tidal wave... We've got to get our legislators to act now."

b. Animal Rescue Initiatives

Michelle from Goshen shares her dedication to animal rescue, highlighting the need for legal reforms to better protect animals.

[11:05] Michelle: "Animals are classified as property... they need to be reclassified as sentient beings with their own rights."

c. Furniture Donation

Chris from White Plains talks about his organization's efforts to donate gently used furniture to individuals transitioning out of homelessness and foster care.

[14:00] Chris: "We furnish their apartments with gently reused furniture... keeps this furniture out of the waste stream."

d. Repair Cafes

Roger from Jersey City introduces listeners to the concept of repair cafes, where volunteers help fix broken household items, promoting sustainability and community engagement.

[15:00] Roger: "Repair cafes are international... we repair everything for free."

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4. Strategies for Building Effective Movements

a. Voting and Local Elections

Adam emphasizes the significant impact of participating in local elections, where votes can decisively influence community policies.

[12:46] Adam Met: "You are so powerful in your vote at the local level... These are the people who decide where the next petrochemical plant is being built."

b. Gamification and Storytelling

Drawing from his experience in the music industry, Adam discusses how gamification and storytelling can foster community and engagement.

[17:34] Adam Met: "We took our track list and turned it into a jigsaw puzzle... fans felt ownership over the album as well as the cause."

c. Collective Effervescence

Adam introduces the sociological concept of collective effervescence, highlighting the power of in-person gatherings to build cohesive movements.

[19:35] Adam Met: "Concerts bring that kind of idea... We need to create spaces that are fun, engaging, where people are taking action together."

d. Engaging with Opposing Views

In a notable segment, Adam shares his experience interviewing Glenn Beck, a conservative commentator, to illustrate the importance of finding common ground despite ideological differences.

[24:35] Adam Met: "We needed to treat each other as equal humans and focus on the things that connected us."

This approach underscores the necessity of building broader alliances to amplify impactful small agreements.

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5. Insights on Effective Activism

Adam discusses the balance between various forms of activism, asserting that while protests are essential, building positive and engaging community spaces is equally important for sustaining movements.

[19:35] Adam Met: "Protest is an absolutely necessary part of any movement... We also need to be building more of those community-based spaces that are really positive."

He warns against the potential negativity that can arise from too much focus on anger and frustration, advocating instead for creating environments that inspire and motivate sustained action.

[21:34] Adam Met: "The collective wave... has gone towards depression and a feeling of giving up. But we're seeing a move towards in-person interaction, which has great potential."

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6. Conclusion

The episode wraps up with reflections on the diverse methods individuals employ to contribute to societal change. Adam reinforces the idea that everyone has a unique role to play in building a better world, and his book serves as a guide to harnessing personal passions into collective action.

[26:46] Alison Stewart: "The name of the book is How to Use the Power of Connection to Engage, Take Action, and Build a Better World. It is by Adam Met."

Listeners are encouraged to explore their passions, engage with their communities, and utilize the strategies outlined in Adam's book to effect meaningful change.

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Notable Quotes

• Adam Met on Multitasking Passion:
  "[05:04]... I like doing 50 things at the same time."

• On the Importance of Local Voting:
  "[12:46]... These are the people who decide where the next petrochemical plant is being built."

• Regarding Collective Effervescence:
  "[19:35]... We need to create spaces that are fun, engaging, where people are taking action together."

• On Engaging with Opposing Views:
  "[24:35]... We needed to treat each other as equal humans and focus on the things that connected us."

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Final Thoughts

Adam Met's insights offer a valuable roadmap for activists and community builders aiming to create lasting and inclusive movements. By blending emotional resonance, strategic engagement, and inclusive dialogue, "How to Use the Power of Connection to Engage, Take Action, and Build a Better World" provides actionable strategies to foster positive societal transformation.

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Listeners interested in Adam Met's work and his book can find more information and resources by following the episode's call-to-action segments and engaging with the ALL OF IT community on WNYC.

Transcript

[Adam Met]

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[Alison Stewart]

This is Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in soho. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful that you're here on today's show. The new documentary Barbara Walters, Tell Me Everything makes its world premiere today at the Tribeca Festival. Its director Jackie Jesko joins us for a preview. Actor Dulay Hill and writer director Patricia McGregor will join us to talk about their new play, Lights Out Nat King Cole. And we'll learn about how the 1983 film the Day after that helped change the Cold War. Its director, Jeff Daniels will join us to talk about his new documentary televised event. That's our plan. So let's get this started with a new book about how to build a better World. In 2018, the New York band AJR had a song called Burn the House Down, a reflection on the power of people to press for change. Take a listen.

[Adam Met]

Used to keep it cool Used to be a fool all about the bouncing my stomach Watch it on the news what you gonna do? I could hit refresh and forget Used to keep it cool Should I keep it light? Stay out of the fight no one's gonna listen to me if I write a song preaching what is wrong Will they let me sing on Should I keep it light? Is that right? Way up, way up we go.

[Alison Stewart]

Way.

[Chrysanthe]

Up, way up oh no we gon.

[Adam Met]

Burn the whole house down.

[Alison Stewart]

It was a prescient tune. Band member Adam Met has written a book that provides emerging activists with a blueprint for how to gain support. And Adam knows what he's talking about. Having established himself as a climate activist, getting his PhD and teaching on the college level, his new book is titled how to Use the Power of Connection to engage, take action, and build a better world in this sort of toolkit. He offers advice for figuring out what's important to you, outlines all the different ways to get involved, and explains how to get people to pay attention. He also imparts wisdom through interviews and stories from people like former presidential candidate Andrew Yang to New York City's youngest ever council member, Chi O Se, to even broadcaster Glenn Beck. Amplify is out now, and Adamet joins us in studio to discuss. Nice to meet you.

[Adam Met]

Great to meet you. Thank you for having me.

[Alison Stewart]

Allison listeners, we'd like to get you in on this conversation. What is a cause that you are passionate about and why? How have you donated your time or talent to help push it forward? Do you volunteer at a food bank or send books to prisoners or participate in a community cleanup or something else? Give us a call, 212-4466. Sorry, 212-433 wnyc 212-433-9692. Or you can reach out on social medial of it. WNYC Got our phone numbers mixed up there. A lot of people obviously know you from your band ajr. When you were a kid, what did you want to do?

[Adam Met]

I liked to do so many different things when I was a kid. You know, people say nowadays they love portfolio careers. I had a portfolio childhood, honestly. I loved theater. I loved music. But I, I know this sounds strange, but I also loved staying in school. I loved learning as much as possible. I read a lot. I loved listening to audiobooks. And so when I did the audiobook for this book, I wanted to make it really creative and different. But I loved kind of taking everything in in the world. And so even now as an adult, I like doing 50 things at the same time. Like you said, I'm a musician, I teach, I have this book, I run an organization, and I'm on tour all the time.

[Alison Stewart]

When did you decide to actually hunker down on your academics and pursue your PhD?

[Adam Met]

When I got bored on tour. And, you know, it sounds crazy because everyone thinks that being a musician and being on the road, it's crazy party life. It's not that we get on a tour bus, we drive through the night, wake up in the next city, do the show, we load in, do the show, pack up and just get in the van and drive to the next city. Yeah, but being on the road, that kind of gave me time during the day before we would play the shows to study and. And I ended up doing my PhD about 2/3 of it from the road. I Had books on the tour bus. And then the other part of the time, I would study. I did my PhD in the UK and so I would go and study. But it really came from the fact that we were going city to city. I was seeing the impact of climate change on our fans. We would pull into San Francisco, see the forest fires in San Francisco. We needed to wear gas masks. Going from the tour bus into the venue. We did the show and then we left and the fans had to stay and cleaned it up. Same thing in Athens, Greece. The entire city flooded the day that we were there. Another impact of climate. And seeing these things firsthand, and the fans coming up to me and saying, what can I do? And them just feeling helpless about it made me realize that it was something I loved studying and also that I had to use the platform that we had built.

[Alison Stewart]

What did you find difficult about getting involved in climate advocacy early on?

[Adam Met]

Yeah, so early on, climate was really focused around global warming. Right. It was this really scientific concept that was really hard for people to access. And honestly, today, I still think climate change is too big, too broad. What does 1.5 degrees even mean? And that's one of the reasons why I wrote the book. But I wanted to get engaged because climate is everything. Climate allows people to get in in a way that a lot of other causes can't, because it's the food that you eat, it's when you flip a light switch, it's how you get from place to place. It's our waste, it's our buildings, it's our clothing. So anybody who has done anything in any sort, activism, or in the jobs that they're working in now can figure out how to fit into the climate movement.

[Alison Stewart]

Before I leave you, and then we'll talk about the book, tell us a little bit about Planet Reimagined. This is what you. This the organization you founded.

[Adam Met]

Planet Reimagined I founded about five years ago. And the whole idea was that when I finished my PhD, I spent years on it. It got published on the school's website. Three people read it. Literally three people read it. And so that shows that there's a real problem with academia. And at the same time, advocacy organizations are incredible. But very rarely do they base their work in the research. So I wanted to start an organization that bridged the two, bridged how research was done and how advocacy was done. So we do creative climate projects, like an incubator, almost like a tech incubator, but we do all of the research with an eye towards how can we Implement it as quickly as possible. What does the advocacy look like? What is the comms strategy? How can we work with governments, with companies, with grassroots organizations in order to implement the research really fast?

[Alison Stewart]

How do people who would be adverse to your organization react to you?

[Adam Met]

So a lot of times the thought behind academic research is it needs the space to explore. Right? It shouldn't be focused on the implementation piece of it. But if we did the same thing around Covid and we kind of did around the MRNA research, then we wouldn't have been able to implement the COVID vaccine, vaccine so quickly. So I think there is a space in academic research for kind of broad exploration, but I also think with kind of immediate problems that we need to solve, there needs to be more of a space with targeted research towards finding solutions really quickly.

[Alison Stewart]

We're talking to musician, academic and climate activist Adam Met. He's joining me in studio to discuss his new book, how to Use the Power of Connection to Engagement. Take Action and Build a Better World. Listeners, we want to hear from you. What is a cause that you are passionate about and why? Tell us how you've donated your time or talent to help push it forward. Do you volunteer at a food bank? Do you send books to prisoners? Something else. Give us a call. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Let's talk to Chrysanthe calling from North Salem. Hi, Chrysanthemum.

[Chrysanthe]

Hey, how are you doing?

[Adam Met]

Great.

[Chrysanthe]

So what I started to do was go through my trash stream for plastic. We've had so many news reports about plastic microplastics being found in our brains, in heart tissue, in our blood, in breast milk and placentas. We are literally drowning in plastic. And I discovered that 99% of my trash stream was plastic because I compost. And then the paper goes to the recycling. So I thought, what do I do with this plastic? And I made an enormous. It started out at 25ft long by about 5 1/2ft wide, and it was at that time a plastic tidal wave. That was last year when I first took it up to Albany. It by no means represents all the plastic that I've collected from my one family of three over six months. But it reflects the colors of water. And so it's been to Albany several times. It's now 50ft long. Somehow I do manage to get it past security. I've been there Tuesday of this week and I'm going again tomorrow because the clock is ticking. We've got to get Our legislators to act now.

[Alison Stewart]

Thank you so much for calling in. We really appreciate it. Let's talk to Michelle from Goshen. Hey, Michelle. Thanks for calling, all of it.

[Chrysanthe]

Hi. How are you doing?

[Alison Stewart]

Well.

[Chrysanthe]

So I am passionate about animal rescue. And over the past, like, five plus years, it has become more and more and more challenging in that there are so many more animals that are being abused, neglected, dumped. And a lot of it has to do with the fact that, you know, people, if they're in financial hardship, you know, the one thing that they do is prioritize, obviously, their kids and their family over their pets and don't take the responsibility, responsible road sometimes of spaying and neutering or, you know, going to a rescue or humane society or something like that, to make sure that the animal isn't just, you know, tossed back out into, you know, the wild, so to speak. And one of the things I think is a big challenge that lawmakers need to do is right now, animals are classified as property. So your pet is a, you know, a piece of property. And really, they need to be reclassified as sentient beings with their own right. So that the legal way in which to, you know, go after abusers or people who are neglectful or just irresponsible, that it has more teeth to it. Because right now, really, you can't do anything other than a slap on the wrist.

[Alison Stewart]

I'm gonna. I'm gonna dive in there. Thank you so much for calling, Michelle. We also have another animal activist who said, I'm very passionate about animal rights and rescuing dogs and cats. I foster and adopt and volunteer at many events with my local dog rescue in Queens. So people who are listening is thinking, I don't even know how to get involved, Adam. I'm not even sure where to start. Where should someone start?

[Adam Met]

So, you know, what I love about these last two callers is that they have something that they're passionate about. They're taking action on it, but they're also thinking about the civic and political angle of it. So the number one thing people can do is vote in local elections, and I'll tell you why. So at the federal level, of course, your vote counts, but at the local level, there are states, there are races for mayors, for comptrollers, for your local assembly, people, for school board members. These people can win or lose by 10 or 12 votes. We've seen this across the country. You are so powerful in your vote at the local level. These are the people that decide where the next petrochemical plant is being built. What zoning looks like, what plastic recycling looks like in your city, what local laws around animals look like. These are the people who are making the decisions. So you are incredibly powerful with your policy arms at the local level. So my call to action would be to look up when your next election is for us. In New York City, there is a primary for the mayor's race. It's coming up.

[Alison Stewart]

It's going to be live on WNYC tonight, Brian Lehrer hosting.

[Adam Met]

Let's go hosting. Excellent. That's a big, a big thing, civic and political action. And I love that both of those callers are working on it.

[Alison Stewart]

Let's talk to Chris calling in from White Plains. Hi, Chris. Thanks for calling all of it.

[Chrysanthe]

Hi, I just wanted to share that I work for an organization called the Furniture Share House and we're up at the Westchester County Airport. We take accept donations of furniture that is gently used and we give it to people who are coming out of homelessness, people who are coming out of shelters, people who are kids aging out of foster care, kids who went into the army because they had no place to go when they left foster care. And when they come out of the army, they still don't have any place to go. And all these folks come to us with their social worker and we furnish their apartments with gently reused furniture that people donate to us. And it is good for everybody. Keeps this furniture out of such bulk out of the waste stream. People get a tax deduction for it. And everybody is happy at the end of every day that we work.

[Alison Stewart]

Thank you so much for calling Chris and piggybacking off of Chris. We're going to go to Roger from Jersey City. I love this Roger. I've been to one of your cafes. Tell people what you're into.

[Chrysanthe]

Oh, that's great. Many people haven't heard of repair cafes, but I'm glad that you have. Repair cafes are international. The idea is that there are people who know how to repair small household items. And there are a lot of people who have a household item that they dearly love, but it's broken and they don't know how to fix it. And so the choice is either throw it away or get it repaired. Repair Cafe is a volunteer adventure. We repair everything for free. People volunteer their time to fix lamps, vacuum cleaners, jewelry, whatever is whatever is broken. So this is a passion of mine. I've been doing this for about 5 years and I just love doing it.

[Alison Stewart]

It's awesome. I made a really good friend at a repair cafe. He was just a Guy who is. He's a builder, and in his free times, he helps people with a broken lamp or, like, a little broken table. Instead of tossing it, you come in and somebody fixes it.

[Adam Met]

I love this concept. And you know what's funny? What I love about all four of these people who we just spoke to is that everyone is doing something different. They found the thing that they care about and they're passionate about. And that's one of the things that I did at the beginning of the book, is helping people find the thing that they care about. There are a lot of people out there who are struggling saying, I want to help the world in some way, but I don't know what my thing is. I don't know what my cause is. And so we kind of created this roadmap for, okay, this is what I love in the world. This is what I care about. This is what I'm really good at. Let me find the thing that I can put my time into. And so I love that all these people have found their thing, and then.

[Alison Stewart]

You take them to the next level. How do you amplify what you care about?

[Adam Met]

Yeah. So as a musician, one of the things that we care about the most is how to move people through emotional resonance. Right. And if you look at music from the 60s all the way through today, a lot of really good, effective music uses storytelling. And there's a good. There's a big difference between a good story and an effective story. A good story is one that you'll share with your friends and family, but an effective story will make you get up off your butt and do something about it. Right. So there are a lot of strategies that the music industry is so good at to make people get up off their butt, whether that's going to a show or buying merchandise, following people online. And so this book was meant to take all of those strategies and help us build better social movements. And there are a lot of tools for individuals to use as well.

[Alison Stewart]

Give me one example. Yeah.

[Adam Met]

So gamification. We think about games all the time. Taylor Swift puts her fans in competition with each other. Twenty one pilots builds these worlds for their fans. We, as ajr, used this really interesting strategy where we forced our fans to collaborate. We took our track list that was. We turned it into a jigsaw puzzle. Before we had even released it, we had 36 jigsaw puzzle pieces, spread them out across the Internet, and forced our fans to collaborate to put together this puzzle. The ownership that they had over that track list because they built the Puzzle themselves was incredible. They shared that more times than we had gotten on any recent social media post, and therefore they felt ownership over the album as well. So now I'm working with a bunch of different organizations, even some political candidates, to think about how to gamify things to build community around their fan base. That is exactly what we need to do more of as we're moving forward.

[Alison Stewart]

We're talking about the book how to Use the Power of Connection to Engage, Take Action, and Build a Better World. My guest is Adam Met. He wrote the book and we are taking your calls. We want to know what you are passionate about. What have you donated your time and talent to help push it forward? Our number is 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. We'll have more after a quick break. This is All OF it. You are listening to ALL OF IT on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest in studio is Adam Met. He's a musician, an academic, a climate activist, and now an author. The name of his book is how to Use the Power of Connection to Engage, Take Action and Build a Better World. All right, this weekend is going to be crucial for a lot of people. There will be protests in the street. No, Kings Day protesters across the country. And then there are people who rally for the President's 250 Military Parade. Where does protesting fall in your rubric of action?

[Adam Met]

Yeah. So I think protest is vital. I worked somewhat on the Inflation Reduction act when it was being negotiated, and Kamala Harris spoke at the signing of it, and she said this massive climate initiative would never have been passed without everybody from protest all the way through the big green organizations, all the way through some people on the right. Right. So protest is an absolutely necessary part of any movement. However, when I think about this, I think a lot about how we can build a more kind of cohesive movement structure. So getting out in the street, protesting, absolutely vital. On the other side of it, I'm sure you've been to these. There are all of these galas where people dress up in suits and the food is usually terrible. That is another piece of raising money in order to kind of build movements. But what happens in the middle? Right, there's not really a space where people can engage in positivity, in fun. Concerts bring that kind of idea. And there's a term that I love called collective effervescence. It was coined by a sociologist named Durkheim. And it's basically when people get together in person, their brainwaves start to get to kind of meld and be in the same place and then they can actually work collaboratively towards something. If you go to a Taylor Swift concert, everybody, people you have never met before are dancing and singing together. We need to take that model and apply it to building better movements. How can we create spaces that are fun, engaging, where people are taking action together? Protests are great. People are really angry and really frustrated, but that's never going to convince everybody to get engaged. That'll convince a small number of people, but there are people who don't want to sit in the anger and frustration. This is not to say that people should not go out and protest. It's necessary. But we also need to be building more of those community based spaces that are really positive.

[Alison Stewart]

But couldn't that wave go to the dark side, that everybody's collective wave can go to dark emotions?

[Adam Met]

Yeah, so it also, it also has. So the collective wave, especially in the last handful of months, has gone towards depression and it's gone towards a feeling of giving up. But one of the things that I love is that Live Nation in the last year has sold 250 million tickets. People are going to the live space more and more as there's more of a kind of, of distrust of content that they're seeing online. The thing that they see as real and truthful is face to face interaction. So we're seeing this move towards in person that's interesting and I really love that. The potential for in person to be something really possible.

[Alison Stewart]

So kind of get off social media.

[Adam Met]

I mean, I didn't say it, you did.

[Alison Stewart]

Let's talk to Joy calling from Rinconkomo. Hi Joy, thanks for calling, all of it.

[Chrysanthe]

Hey guys. I'm a Girl Scout mom and last year the Girl Scouts taught me how to make, make bracelets as part of our bronze award, which was super awesome. But that's another story. So around the election, I started making bracelets for the election and just handing them out to everybody I met and talking to them about voting and obviously to vote for Kamala Harris. Then for the. After the election happened, everybody was really upset so I switched my bracelets to be anti despair devices that had positive messages like still be you. And we got this and, and that was really great. But then the last, the first protest I went to this year was raining, so. And I'm an artist and a stay at home mom. So I'm like, okay, what am I going to do in the rain? I don't want to hold up a soggy Sign. So I started making umbrellas with eight protest signs on each side it has taken. And I call them Good Trouble umbrellas for, you know, John Lewis and Rain or Shine protest signs. And now I am shipping them all over the place. I have to make a shipment to Maine today and to New Jersey, and I am so proud of myself.

[Alison Stewart]

Okay, first of all, you're going to take a picture and you're going to send it to us via Instagram so that we can post what you do.

[Adam Met]

Oh, my God, I need to buy one.

[Alison Stewart]

Sounds amazing. Let's talk to Susan from Baskin Ridge, New Jersey. Hi, Susan.

[Chrysanthe]

Hi, Allison.

[Alison Stewart]

What do you do?

[Chrysanthe]

I am an artist. I'm a painter. And my passion is helping veterans. We have a huge veteran hospital in our town and a really good way to give back and volunteers through our local ymca. We have a togetherhood committee. And as I said, my passion is veterans. So I teach sip and paints to about 15 or 20 men. Depends who can make it. And it's a really great thing. It's just good for the soul. They all smile, they laugh. They have a lot of art on their walls because they're regulars. And it's just a really good thing.

[Alison Stewart]

Thanks so much for calling in. Adam. I wanted to ask you about. You interviewed a lot of people, really engaging the book, but you interviewed Glenn Beck.

[Adam Met]

Yes.

[Alison Stewart]

Conservative commentator. That's the nicest way to say it. He's a conspiracy theorist. What did you want to get from him? Why did you want to include him in your book?

[Adam Met]

Yeah, so a couple of years ago, Glenn Beck came to one of our shows. And first I was surprised about that. He came to the show, after the show, he tweeted and he said, love ajr, love the music, love the lyrics. But most of all, they helped me to connect with my son. And so that kind of sparked an idea. And so when we were working on this book, I wrote to him and I said, look, you said, you're a fan. Can I come interview you? This is what the book is. This is what we're working on. Spent four hours with him. Four hours. We talked about everything from family to religion to his work to his history, you know, CNN to fox. Everything that he did. And it took four hours to get to one thing that we agreed on. We disagreed about literally everything. And after four hours, we talked about climate kind of here and there. And by the end of the four hours, I said, oh, you know, you have a place in another state. What do you use to power it? Right? And he says, oh, natural gas, it's great. It's completely clean. And I said, oh, who told you that? And he said, everyone knows that it's natural. And I explained to him that natural gas is methane. It's more than 80 times more powerful than CO2 in terms of warming. And the one thing that we were able to agree on was really specific, really niche, but really impactful. And it's that we should be plugging leaks in methane gas pipelines. And to have even somebody like that say that publicly to his conservative audience, which he still has a pretty sizable audience, is really impactful. And so what I found out from that, kind of the key takeaway was that if I tried to push back against anything that he was saying, then we weren't going to be able to move the conversation forward. We needed to treat each other as equal humans and focus on the things that connected us. And that's why we, we were able to get to a place where we can find one thing to agree on. And that whole chapter is about how to talk to people who disagree with you, how to build a bigger tent because we need more people, even if we can agree on the small things.

[Alison Stewart]

The name of the book is how to Use the Power of Connection to Engage, take action and Build a Better World. It is by Adam Met. Thanks for coming to the studio.

[Adam Met]

Thank you. The new Huggies Snug N Dry are luxuriously soft and ultra dry. How soft are we talking? Unbelievably soft? Irresistibly soft. Doesn't your baby deserve a diaper that's oh so gentle on their tushy? Huggies Snug and Dry helps keep them comfy, cozy and protected. Experience the unexpected softness and up to 100% leak protection. More parents choose the new Huggies Snug N Dry softness versus the leading premium diaper Huggies. We got you, baby.

[Alison Stewart]

I'm Ira Flato, host of Science Friday. For over 30 years, our team has been reporting high quality news about science, technology and medicine. News you won't get anywhere else. And now that political news is 24 7, our audience is turning to us to know about the really important stuff in their lives. Cancer, climate change. Genetic engineering, childhood diseases. Our sponsors know the value of science and health news. For more sponsorship information, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.