← Boiling Point
Boiling Point
How John Francis Became a Planetwalker
00:38:47
Sammy Roth sits down with environmental activist John Francis, also known as the "Planetwalker." John shares his extraordinary journey, from a 17-year vow of silence to walking and bicycling across continents, all in the name of environmental justice. He explains how hope, empathy, and kindness aren’t just virtues—they’re a form of protest. Link to the “Planetwalker” short doc: https://www.latimes.com/00000193-55c8-d42e-a99f-5fd8041b0000-123
Loading summary
Transcript66 lines
- [00:02]
John Francis
This is an LA Times Studios podcast.
- [00:10]
Sammy Roth
From the Los Angeles Times.
- [00:12]
John Francis
I'm Sammy Roth.
- [00:13]
Sammy Roth
This is Boiling Point.
- [00:25]
John Francis
People ask me all the time how I stay hopeful, how I keep reporting on the climate crisis without yielding crushing despair. The easy answer is that I'm an optimistic person and I'm lucky to be focused on a subject, clean energy, where positive change is actually happening. Writing about solar power and wind power and electric vehicles gives me hope. Interviewing climate activists gives me hope. Living in California gives me hope. But the more complicated reality is that I do worry. Of course I worry. How could I not? We live in dangerous times. That was true before Donald Trump and that will be true after Donald Trump. So when I'm not trying to do my part to stave off disaster, I do my best to have fun. After writing about the fires that ravaged Los Angeles in January, I celebrated the Dodgers signing Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki. When the smoke finally cleared from the fires and the air was safe to breathe, I went to Disneyland. And then when my batteries felt recharged, I got back to work. This week on the podcast, we have a conversation that I'm hoping will be a pick me up for anyone dealing with climate dread or anxiety or just hopelessness. When I'm feeling down, and I'm guessing this is true for many of you, it often stems from the sense that there's nothing I can do. Climate change is happening on this massive global scale, and the reality is that I'm only one person. There's only so much I can ask of myself, but you can definitely ask yourself to be kind. And according to environmental activist John Francis, being kind is the most important thing you can do. If you've never heard of John Francis, you're not alone. Before he and I sat down to have this conversation, I'd only just learned his story. But let me tell you, it is an amazing story. John became an environmental justice activist in the early 1970s after two oil tankers collided in San Francisco Bay, spilling 800,000 gallons of fossil fuel. He was moved like he had never been moved before.
- [02:42]
It was the first time that I actually saw an environmental insult of that magnitude. The birds flapping in the water and the fish turning over and dying, and I could smell the oil.
- [03:00]
John chose an unusual and provocative form of protest. He took a vow of silence that ultimately lasted 17 years. He also refused to ride in motor vehicles for 22 years. These days, John is talking and driving, but the 79 year old activist has walked and bicycled across north and South America, earning him the well Deserved nickname Planet Walker. That's also the title of a new documentary released by the LA Times and Bloomberg Green Docs. Here's what John had to say about being hopeful, empathetic, and above all, kind.
- [03:40]
Sammy Roth
Dr. John Francis, thank you very much for being with us on the Boiling Point podcast.
- [03:45]
John Francis
Thank you, Sammy.
- [03:47]
Sammy Roth
I loved watching this documentary, Planet Walker. I was left curious what brought you from Philadelphia to California in the first place?
- [03:56]
John Francis
I think it was the. Just the time, you know, the 60s, the 69. I came out and it was the music and the culture, you know, I wanted to be a hippie. So I was left Philadelphia and. And traveled across the country to visit some friends who had also left Philadelphia. And when I got to where they said they were living in Marin county and Mill Valley, they told me, oh, they had moved to Place. Point Reyes they called it. And so I hitched out to Point Reyes with my friend who I had traveled with. And he and I got to the local store in Inverness park and we asked if anyone knew our friend and they said, oh, yeah, he lives up on Paradise Ranch Estates. And we visited him and I loved it.
- [05:01]
Sammy Roth
How did it compare to what you expected?
- [05:04]
John Francis
It was beyond my expectations. I had never seen trees like the trees that I saw on my first visit to California. Like, oh, my God, these redwood trees are just huge. Yeah.
- [05:21]
Sammy Roth
This oil spill in 1971, I mean, just a few years after you got here, Right. I mean, the spill that led to your years of silence and to the. What was it, 17 years of not taking a car? How many years was it?
- [05:33]
John Francis
22 years I didn't ride in motorized vehicles, and 17 years I didn't speak.
- [05:40]
Sammy Roth
Right. So why do you think you had such a strong reaction to that oil spill?
- [05:44]
John Francis
Well, you know, I think that it has to do with my childhood and my relationship with animals and birds in particular as a. As a little boy and living in Philadelphia, we would take care of the robins that fell out of the trees, the robins and wrens that fell from the trees, shells from their nests during the spring, and we would feed them until they were able to fly off again and to see the destruction of the beaches and the wildlife, and particularly the birds in the oil spill in 1971 probably touched a place that even I didn't realize existed.
- [06:37]
Sammy Roth
That's interesting to me because, I mean, there have been so many oil spills even in my relatively short lifetime so far, it almost feels like it's easy to become inured to them. I mean, they're so common, and so it's kind of remarkable to think you had the reaction that you did. And I mean took the kind of action that you did. Can you believe that all these years later? I mean, it's been more than 50 years that oil still plays such a dominant role in society the way that it does. Is that something you expected or did you think that we would have moved forward by now?
- [07:10]
John Francis
Well, when I finally started studying environment and I did get a PhD in environmental studies, my dissertation was on oil spills. And if you just go back to 1969, there was the California blowout in Santa Barbara, that spill people saw and people with influence saw that and with lots of coverage because it was so close and so spectacular, it birthed the modern day environmental movement. And it just wasn't so long after that spill that the spill in San Francisco Bay, the collision between the Arizona standard and the Oregon standard, and that was what sent me on my journey. But oil and in the water has been something that has galvanized people's perception of environment, that kind of pollution, especially when people use the water for their recreation, they use the water for their livelihood, for fishing and the resources that come from the marine environment. To see something like that happen and affecting you, I mean, people from someplace else coming to California to go to the beach, and then they say we can't go to the beach because of an oil spill. And it drives that home. How involved we are with the marine environment. Even if we don't live on the seashore, we don't live at the beach.
- [09:12]
Sammy Roth
So if it's so powerful and it moves someone like you to take the kind of incredible action that you did, and if it really gets to people's imagination in that way, I mean, this stuff happened more than 50 years ago, it's still happening. Why do you think it's so hard to move forward? I mean, we still. I drove here today in a car that runs on gas. Why do you think it's so hard to move on?
- [09:33]
John Francis
Well, you know, I can't say that we're not moving forward. One of the, probably the most amazing things for me is that I was able to walk across the United States and study and get a PhD in environmental studies. That at the time of the Exxon Valde spill, I was probably the only one in the United States studying oil spills at a PhD level. And that's when the Coast Guard approached me to ask me if I would help them write the oil pollution regulations.
- [10:17]
Sammy Roth
That's one of the most interesting parts of the documentary, by the way. That while you were still not speaking, that after that famous oil spill, infamous oil spill in Alaska, Exxon Valdez, they actually asked you, hey, come help us write these regulations. And you walked across the country to D.C. right, to help them do that?
- [10:32]
John Francis
Yeah. Well, I guess the funny part about that is, you know, they called the University of Wisconsin and said, well, we see that there's this gentleman who is studying oil spills is John Francis. Can we talk to him? And I said, oh, well, no, you know, John doesn't speak. He's taken a vow of silence. And I said, oh, that's pretty amazing. But we just really want him to come to Washington and help us write these regulations because we see that he's being published and we're using the data from some of his publications and said, well, you know, John doesn't ride in cars. He only walks. And there was this kind of a silence on the phone, and I is there somebody normal at your university that we can talk to?
- [11:21]
Sammy Roth
And the answer is no, I'm sure.
- [11:24]
John Francis
Well, the funny, amazing thing was that they talked to my major professor. His name was John Steinhardt. And John Steinhardt was living in Santa Barbara when the Santa Barbara spill happened, when that Spill happened in 69. And he wrote a book called Blowout, he and his wife, which I had no idea. And I was surprised to find when I got to the University of Wisconsin, there was someone there who really understood oil spills and understood why they affected me in that way. And so he became my major professor. And so he explained to them what it was that they wanted to know. And it was a few months later, after I had passed all my exams and everything, and I was in. I was in. Had walked to the east coast, that they reached out again to ask me if I would come down to Washington. And I was in Vermont at the time, and. And I. I did speak because I had started speaking after 17 years, and so I couldn't answer the telephone. I could talk to them on the phone. And they asked me if I would come to Washington. And I said, I'd love to do that. And they said, we're sending you a plane ticket. I said, I. I don't use a plane. I. And they said, you don't walk. You walk, Dr. Francis. Right? You don't use cars. And I said, that's true. I said, well, how can you get here? And I said, I could ride my bicycle. And they said, how long will that take? And I said, about two months. They said, we'll be waiting. So I got to Work for the Coast Guard writing regulations with other people who were attorneys and engineers. But I was the environmental analyst and project manager for, for those regulations. And some of the regulations I think have led to less oil in the marine environment. For example, we passed the double tank double hull regulation where for low speed impacts you have a double hull. So the first hull is breached, but the second hull is not. And we also passed things like the, you know, when you're loading the oil into a tanker before people just, they looked at the, into the hole to see if there was any oil coming. Oh, and then it would come out and it would splash on the deck and it would run off into the marine environment beside the ship. And so what we just said, well, look, you have to have a device that sounds an alarm as the oil is coming up to the top. So it's an oil flow detector, a device that notifies us before the oil reaches the deck level. Another regulation which is very simple and I guess you might call this low hanging fruit, is to have scuppers, which are the holes on the side of the, the railings that allow the water to run into the water. Well, when you're loading, those should be closed and that keeps everything on the deck if there is an accident. And with that and that there has to be two people on the bridge at all times for tankers. I think a lot has been done to decrease the amount of oil flowing from accidents into the marine environment. But of course it's still going to happen.
- [15:33]
Sammy Roth
So even though we still use a lot of oil today, you see reasons for hope. You think we've made progress?
- [15:39]
John Francis
Well, at some point I think we're going to cut our oil use.
- [15:42]
Sammy Roth
I hope so.
- [15:43]
John Francis
Yeah, I believe that. I mean, I believe there's other alternatives that are now becoming more viable, like solar and hydrogen and maybe even nuclear, the way that nuclear is being developed, that it might form another avenue for us as well.
- [16:05]
Sammy Roth
You said in the documentary that in college you heard from fellow black students at your university that they were asking you what your environmental activism had to do with the struggle, that they were confused by that. Why were you focused on the environment and not the struggle? I guess I'm curious if you could talk a little more about that and what, you know, what you see today, especially, you know, environmentalism and climate change, you know, what does that have to do with the struggle for racial equity and for racial progress?
- [16:36]
John Francis
Yeah, that's a, I think that that's a really important question. And I don't blame my fellow students for Asking that question or being confused by it, because it wasn't so long ago that we felt that the environment was something outside of ourselves and that we were the caretakers that. But we weren't part of it. And as I walked across the country, I could see the consciousness shifted from though we're not outside of it, but we're actually part of it. What I didn't see was that if we were part of it, just let's make that the next jump then, that if we're part of it, then our first opportunity to treat the environment in a sustainable way or even understand what we mean by sustainability is to look at how we treat each other. Because that's our first opportunity to treat the environment in a sustainable way or a positive way is in how we relate to each other. And so I chose Earth Day to Start speaking, the 20th anniversary of Earth Day.
- [18:00]
Sammy Roth
So that would have been what, 1990?
- [18:01]
John Francis
In 1990, I chose Earth Day because I wanted to remind myself that I was going to speak for the environment. And the environment had changed from just being about pollution, which I was, you know, really focused on when I started my journey. That was not only about pollution and loss of species and habitat and climate change, but it was about how we treated each other. So it was about human rights and civil rights and gender equality and economic equity and all the ways we related to each other. Because if we oppress one another, if we exploited each other, then that was gonna manifest back in the physical environment. Because if we're part of it, how we treat each other when we meet each other really means something.
- [18:55]
Sammy Roth
Well, I mean, for those who might not be super, super immersed in these issues, that might be a radical concept. But for me, writing about climate change and energy, that makes all the sense in the world because you look at who is harmed the most and who is harmed the most quickly by the things that are made worse by rising temperatures and by pollution from oil and gas and from fossil fuels and by wildfires and heat waves and all of these things. I mean, it's communities of color, it's lower income communities, it's people who don't have the resources to protect themselves, whose communities have been sort of bulldozed and cut apart by freeways. I mean, it's exactly what you're talking about. It's how we treat each other. Environment is not just an issue about the environment, it's an issue about who is harmed. It's a public health issue. So everything you're saying rings totally true to me.
- [19:42]
John Francis
Yeah. And you know it's not hard to understand that there's the. The shark in a circle, you know, metaphor where everyone is out in the circle and there are people in the center of the circle, and the people on the outside of the circle are saying, hey, there's sharks out here. There's sharks. We got to do something. And the people in the center are going, sharks. I don't see any sharks. There's nothing to do. And until eventually the circle gets smaller and smaller, and eventually the people in the center are going, hey, the sharks. Why didn't someone say something? Well, you know, I think the film and films that are about climate change and that help us understand that we're all part of the environment is something that can address that so that people in the center can hear what the people on the outer sides are saying, and we all get to share that information.
- [20:48]
Sammy Roth
Well, I loved what you said in the film. I mean, I think I wrote this down here just because it resonated with me. You said. You said, kindness is the special sauce. And I think you said it in a way that you knew that it sounds a little bit trite and that people might want to roll their eyes at it. But so many of the problems we face, if we were just all willing to be a little more empathetic and kind to each other, that we could solve a lot of environmental problems. And that rings true to me. And the reason, by the way it rings true to me is just thinking about this nexus between environmental crises and climate change and racial justice, inequality. I wrote a story a couple years about some research out of USC that was looking at who is driving on freeways and who is breathing the pollution from those cars. And this is probably not going to surprise you. It found that people driving on freeways were typically whiter and typically wealthier, and people breathing the pollution from the cars driving on those freeways, because of where the freeways were built, were typically more disproportionately people of color and lower income. And I wrote a story that said that. And I wrote a. You know, the story was run with a headline that said that pretty straight out. And I never got so much hate mail for anything I'd written before. And so when you made the comment that kindness is the secret sauce or the special sauce, I thought, yeah, you know, we need more kindness. I like that a lot.
- [22:09]
John Francis
I have to say that, you know, I came up with this kindness thing. Well, so where does that come from? And it's like walking across America. And I mean, America. And that's all of us. If I took seven years to walk across America and stopping and working and going to school and working and going to school, so I didn't just do it right off and, you know, zip across. I think you could do it in a, in a few months if you walked, you know, six months, I think you could probably get across the country walking. But what I discovered was that as, especially as an African American, as a black man in the 80s walking across the United States, that it was kindness. It was the kindness of strangers, people who I just happened to be walking down the road and saw me, who offered me a place to stay. It was that kindness seemed to transcend all of the things that we put inside or put around us, like race and politics and policies and social standing. Kindness transcended all of those things to allow people to say, do you need a place to stay tonight? Can I help you with a meal? Do you want to go to school here? I see you don't have any money. Well, we're going to work on that. Kindness is something that I believe is more powerful than we might think. And it may be. It's a practice that I think that if we all seem to practice, if we all practice it more, it would just invade and become part of our culture. It already is part of our culture. People are kind and I think people want to be kind. And the way that I walked across the country, the reason I'm here now, and I can smile and I play the banjo and I'm very happy you're.
- [24:34]
Sammy Roth
Holding your banjo, by the way.
- [24:35]
John Francis
I'm holding that banjo. And I think it's because people are kind and that kindness really is. The special sauce.
- [24:47]
Sammy Roth
You talked about why you decided to start speaking again after 17 years. What made you decide to start driving again?
- [24:56]
John Francis
It was very interesting decision because I was in Venezuela when it came to me that I should start riding in motorized vehicles.
- [25:09]
Sammy Roth
Interesting. Big oil producing country, Venezuela, they do.
- [25:13]
John Francis
You know, and Maracaibo, is this really impacted by oil? And it was one of the places that I studied as I'm doing my research, but I was walking through a town called El Dorado. And it was sort of an infamous town because it was a prison town. And I was walking past the prison gate and for some reason I felt that I was a prisoner. It took me another hundred miles of walking to figure out that I was in prison. I was actually in prison. It was a prison of my own making. And it was the prison of not ever getting in motorized vehicles. Now you'd Think, Well, I'd already said I didn't want to get in motorized vehicles. How did it become a prison? Well, unlike not speaking, which every year, I would ask myself, is this appropriate? Do you want to start speaking again? You have something to say? On my birthday every year, I would revisit that decision. I never revisited the decision not to ride in motorized vehicles. And so over the years, it became calcified. It became to a place where I was. I never expected to have a PhD. I never expected to be a UN Goodwill Ambassador. I never expected to do any of the things that happen. But they did. And here I am now walking, and my parents are, oh, a thousand. Several thousand miles behind me. And if I keep going like this, I'll never see them again. I felt that I needed to reset my priorities. And so I came home that Christmas and frightened my mom and my dad. It was the funniest thing. I flew home, I knock on the door, and my dad comes to the door, and he looks at me and he says, you know, this is the happiest Christmas of my life.
- [27:37]
Sammy Roth
This question is in no way to undermine the beauty and poignancy of that story. But I have to ask these days, do you ever, when you get into a car or when you pump gasoline, do you ever feel a twinge of uncertainty or regret of, hey, what am I doing? I'm a part of this.
- [27:59]
John Francis
Oh, I am a part of it.
- [28:00]
Sammy Roth
Yeah.
- [28:01]
John Francis
Yeah. I mean, I. You know, even when I walked, even when I didn't speak, I fully felt that I'm a part of everything. I didn't want to say I'm better or worse or. No, I'm just a part of it. And. And for example, when I lived in Inverness in California, Northern California, and I would go to the post office and I had a. A stamp and a letter, and I put it in the. The mailbox, they didn't say, okay, it's a letter from John Francis. Get the horse out, call the pony express. You know, all part of the system. You know, when I went to a restaurant or when I bought food, you know, it didn't get there by wagon. And, you know, or it didn't grow. We didn't grow all our things there. It came by cars and trucks and everything, my clothes. So I was. Oh, I'm fully a part of who we all are.
- [29:01]
Sammy Roth
I love that answer. And I ask the question because basically every time I write anything having to do with fossil fuels, when I write stories about lawsuits against oil and gas companies having to do with climate Change. Or when I write about the need to switch to electric vehicles or renewable energy, I get comments from people, sometimes very angry comments, sometimes just sort of troll like stuff, saying, oh, well, you probably drive a gasoline car or a. Have you never taken an airplane before? And the answer is no, of course I've driven cars with gasoline. I've taken airplanes. But the way the comments are written, it's basically saying, you have no right to say anything about this stuff because you're part of a system that runs on fossil fuels. And I don't agree with that, but I sometimes am at my wit's end on how to deal with it.
- [29:49]
John Francis
Yeah, no, you have every right to say it because you are part of it. Because we are part of it. And you know, that's the. Who else is there going to say? I mean, who else is there to say, to speak for us is. Except us. And even if we're doing something that we would like to stop or change or modify, we're still doing it. And we're still. Yes, but we'd like to change and modify. And that's the conversation we want to have with all of us, because it's not just me, it's all of us. We're all the environment. And I think that's where kindness comes in and listening comes in. I took 17 years to learn how to listen and maybe hear things that I didn't believe or I didn't know, but that's what learning is. And so in the listening, you want to be kind. In the. In the speaking, you want to be kind in how we relate to each other. It's just the magic sauce that lets us be with each other and care for each other, even though we don't all agree or see or the same way, it's all part of who we are.
- [31:12]
Sammy Roth
I'll ask you one specific question here. For people who are kind of struggling to figure out what to do right now, which I think, especially at this moment, where we are politically, a lot of people who care about the climate, who care about pollution and the environment, who care about how those things intersect with our health, they're just struggling. What do we do with ourselves? What would your advice be right now for folks who care about these issues, who care about, I think, oil and pollution in particular, what would your advice be on actions that people can take if they want to contribute to real change?
- [31:44]
John Francis
Well, I would think that we continue the struggle, but also remind ourselves that we're all on the planet together and we need to be kind to each other. And as we're kind to one another, I guess, in the morning, and I say this, it says, as we aspire, so shall we become. So don't stop, don't stop aspiring for, for the benefit of all of us, you know, aspire for that and not to say that it's going to be easy. And that's why I call things that I do a practice, you know, because let's practice this because it's, it's not, we're not going to be good at it right away, but let's practice and let's keep practicing. And so what is your practice? Is kindness your practice? Just keep it up, keep it up and our children keep it up, keep it up and it'll make a difference.
- [32:57]
Sammy Roth
Besides playing the banjo, which I am going to ask you to do in a moment, what do you spend most of your time doing these days? What are you working on?
- [33:03]
John Francis
I write and I am also on a journey, another walking journey in Africa. So my wife allowed me to go to Africa now and start walking. I've walked across the United States, the length of South America, and I was on my way to Africa to walk the length of Africa when my wife says, we've been dating for 10 years, John, and maybe it's time we get married and raise our family. Well, my youngest son is 17 and he's turning 18 and he's about ready to graduate from high school and go on to college. So she said to me that I should do whatever it is that I had in my mind to do, and that's to walk from Cape Town, South Africa to Cairo, Egypt.
- [34:00]
Sammy Roth
Wow. Any particular cause you're trying to raise awareness of or draw attention to?
- [34:05]
John Francis
Well, I'm working with a group called the globe program, globe.gov, and it's a amazing international environmental education group that was formed in 1994, I think it was with Al Gore when he was vice president. And it takes a little piece of land, about 30, 30 meter square meter piece of land nearer at a school. And then the kids who become scientists and they measure the rainfall, the cloud cover, the soil temperature, and all these parameters that they share through NASA with other schools around the world. And I think when I started there might have been 5,000 schools and a few countries. Now there are like 100, 127 countries and 50,000 schools around the world where the students are gathering this data and sharing it with scientists around the world to study climate change. And my journey from South Africa and the south of Africa to the north is Collecting that kinds of data. I have a phone app. But also asking the children to add another layer about kindness, about kindness in their community, what it looks like and what it looks like in their lives.
- [35:43]
Sammy Roth
That's super cool. Last thing before I ask you to play the banjo for a minute. The end of the film. One of the final notes was that you drive, I think, a 2005 Toyota Prius these days.
- [35:55]
John Francis
Yes.
- [35:56]
Sammy Roth
Thoughts on electric vehicles? Plug in. Electric vehicles versus hybrids and what people should choose.
- [36:04]
John Francis
Well, you know, it's like shoes. I say wear the most comfortable shoes. Yeah, but what's the brand? It's like, well, come on. I can. You know, there are brands that have comfortable shoes for your feet. And everybody's got different feet. I mean, you got two of them if you're lucky. And sometimes people don't have feet at all. But if you do and you want to get a shoe, make sure it's a comfortable shoe. And I'd say the same thing about a car. For me, right now, hybrid cars are the most comfortable for me. But for some other people, electric cars work even better. They are comfortable for them. So what is your comfort level? Where are you? You know, you can hurt yourself and do something that is because of the style, because that's what everybody wants you to do. No, go for the comfort.
- [37:11]
Sammy Roth
Dr. John Francis. Planet Walker. Would you mind playing us out on the banjo?
- [37:15]
John Francis
Sure.
- [37:15]
Sammy Roth
It.
- [37:41]
John Francis
To watch the documentary Planet Walker, go to latimes.comshortdocs that's latimes.coms H O R T D O C S.
- [38:02]
Sammy Roth
Thank you for listening to Boiling Point. I'm your host, Sammy Roth. My producers are Mary Knoff and Jonathan Shiflet. Sound design and original music by Jonathan Shiflett. Elijah Wolfson is our editor. Denise Callahan is our studio manager. Ben Church is our production manager.
- [38:21]
John Francis
Nick Norton is our engineer.
- [38:23]
Sammy Roth
Special thanks to LA Times Studio president, Anna Magzanian, President and Chief Operating officer of the Los Angeles Times, Chris Argentieri and executive editor of the Los Angeles Times, Terry Tang. Boiling Point is executive produced by Darius Derek Shon and created by me, Sami Roth.