The Live Lightly Podcast

Jessica (00:01)
Hi there and welcome back to the Live Lightly podcast. I am your host, Jessica Franklin. And today I am joined by our good friend, Aidan Charron from the Earth Day Organization. Today we are having a one year anniversary episode. One year ago, Aidan joined me for the first episode of the Live Lightly podcast. And so I thought it would be fitting to have him back to talk about Earth Day 2025.
So thank you, Aiden, for being here again with me today. Welcome.

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (00:33)
Thank you so much for having me, and congratulations on one year.

Jessica (00:36)
Thank you. It's been a fun journey and one that I'm looking forward to continuing. yeah, so as we sit here before Earth Day 2025, I think it's important to talk about what the premise is for this year, our power, our planet. Can you share the vision behind this year's theme and help us understand what this means?

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (01:02)
Yeah, sure thing. So Earth Day has been around for 55 years and we've been leading the world and raising awareness and taking action on the critically important environmental issues. We've been advocating for the health of our planet, our oceans, our air, soil, ecosystems, wildlife, and then especially human health. April 22nd, 2025, Earth Day will be turning 56. It'll be our 55th anniversary. I'm in 192 countries and over 1 billion people are expected to participate globally.

This demonstrates how diverse the Day movement is and remains as dedicated today as it was back in 1970, bringing everybody together. That's half of the Our Power Our Planet, that people power portion. So the grassroots people power has always been at the heart of Earth Day and it's the catalyst for paradigm shifting change because when individuals unite with a common purpose, they overcome even the most entrenched systems and industries. If you think back to pre-1970 in the United States, you know, there is nothing but

sludge in our rivers, rivers literally catch on fire, smog was such an issue you couldn't see 10 feet in front of you. But over time, we were able to get the clean air rat pass, the clean water act passed and the EPA established. this year, though, we are focused also on the need to create clean and expensive and unlimited energy for the entire planet through renewable solar and wind and other technologies. So that's wind, tidal, hydroelectric in some cases, and solar being the main one we're pushing.

and we're hoping to see a tripling of renewable energy generation in the world by 2030. So that's kind of our hope. By 2035, energy needs in countries such as the US can be met by these renewable energy sources 365 days a year, which is why we really think we can get that tripling of renewable energy by 2030. It's not as outlandish as it sounds. It's actually we're pretty close to hitting that mark. Renewable energy is getting cheaper and cheaper by the day, and countries have been proving it.

all over the place that they can run on just renewable energy. So that's the idea behind our power of planet. So promotion of renewable energy using people to push it harder and to push out our leaders that we need to do this if we want to stay economically viable and if we want to keep our planet healthy.

Jessica (03:12)
Yeah, that does sound like a huge goal, but you just said that we are actually moving in the right direction for globally. can you talk about what it takes to get there, both globally and locally in the US

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (03:24)
Yeah, I mean, in the United States, you think about it, Texas, which most people associate with oil drilling, typically, they're leading the nation in wind energy generation. They have their own grid when it comes to renewable energy. They're leading the nation in wind energy and they have huge amounts of solar energy as well. Our existing droid capacity is easily becoming the world's leading producer of advanced geothermal energy here in the United States. That's energy coming up from the ground, basically heat turning into turbine spin.

California and Florida are often at odds politically, but both the forefront of the solar power boom, we're seeing that coming up globally. China is leaning hugely on investing in renewable energy and making it a lot cheaper. Uruguay has transformed its energy sector, moving from being dependent on oil imports to generating 98 % of its electricity from renewable energy sources. India has set an

goal of 50 % of its energy requirements come from renewable energies by 2030. Kenya is a leader in Africa and is also a leader with geothermal energy. They're hoping to transform all of their electrical systems to some form of renewable energy and by switching to geothermal they're able to emit 97 % less acid rain causing compounds and 99 % less carbon dioxide as a country.

I can keep going. we have third of all homes in Brazil using solar power. I'm sorry, third of all homes in Australia using solar power while in Brazil hydroelectric accounted for nearly 68 % of its total electricity generation in 2023. So we are in the middle of the renewable energy transition. It is not like a down the road thought that we thought we might be when it comes to like as much as we all hate to listen to the news, but it just sounds like over and over again, we're back to oil, we're going back to coal. But in reality,

Jessica (04:46)
Hahaha!

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (05:14)
Everybody's going towards renewables. It is the best case economically for countries and countries recognize this, businesses recognize this, so they're making the transition ahead of time.

Jessica (05:24)
Wow, that's pretty incredible that there's not more pushback from, Big Oil, who generally is going to profit from not doing this. And so can you talk about how their involvement has, either made this transition a little bit harder or how people have overcome their involvement in the moving forward?

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (05:32)
Yeah.

You know, think it's, you know, the oil industry is obviously pushing back on renewable energy in a lot of cases, but at the same time, they also recognize that that's the way forward. Petroleum, coal, anything we're pulling out of the ground, which does include some of those, you know, materials that we need to produce renewable energy, like that's not lost, mean, but petroleum, coal, the ones that we burn explicitly are finite resources, and it's becoming more more expensive to extract those from the ground.

when in reality they could just build a solar plant or a wind farm and generate the same amount of electricity for much cheaper. So even oil companies and petroleum fossil fuel companies are recognizing there needs to be a need for that transition and they're investing huge amounts into it. like even we see them as the bad guys, they're also recognizing that the only way forward is renewables.

Jessica (06:30)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so they're actually investing in it themselves so that they will profit on it, which makes sense because you know, if they see something moving in one direction, why not?

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (06:43)
They are investing it, yeah.

Jessica (06:50)
So that's all really good news. I'm so excited to hear all of the good news in global energy and moving it towards renewable resources. And for those of us who might be feeling overwhelmed about all the stuff happening in the environment right now, how can individuals start taking some meaningful actions towards this in their own daily lives to support this movement?

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (07:14)
Reach out to your local municipalities when it comes to where you get your energy from. Reach out to your energy provider and ask them, where is my energy coming from? Is it coming from fossil fuel sources? Is it coming from coal? Where is it coming from? And that's the first step. If you don't know where it's coming from, you have no way of adjusting. And then once you figure out where it's from, ask them to think about at least, like start moving towards solar so we can start cheapening and start dampening our energy prices a little bit.

Jessica (07:30)
Mm-hmm.

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (07:41)
All the time, if you pull anybody right now in the United States, the biggest issue is cost of living prices. And because of that, any relief people can get from renewable energy to decrease their cost is going to be a huge benefit. And the first step is just asking your utilities to make that switch.

Jessica (08:00)
So you're asking your utilities to make that switch. Is that right?

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (08:04)
utilities and your government, your local government. So the local government, there's a lot of places that do community power. So if you reach out to your local constituents and say, hey, we think we need to switch over to renewable energy and just keep pestering them. I know it can be annoying. I know making a phone call isn't for everybody, but write that letter and just say, hey, we want to see a switch in our town or in our city to renewable energy. At Earthday.org, we're asking for commitments from local cities.

Jessica (08:29)
Mm-hmm.

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (08:32)
We're getting them from a whole diverse set of players. It's not just blue cities or red cities. It's a it's a, a bag. Like they, no matter what your political ideology is, renewable energy is going to benefit your community. So it is not like a scary thing to be like scared of. It's something that we need to start moving towards and we need to start putting pressure, little bit more pressure on our leadership, our government leadership.

Jessica (08:57)
Okay, and just to go one step deeper into that conversation about, you're asking your leaders to embrace this as a city, which would help your local, power company to be able to start doing this. And you're asking your city and your community to also embrace some of some solar and those types of things maybe.

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (09:01)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica (09:22)
on school buildings and that is that kind of the right direction? Yeah, that's what we're asking for.

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (09:26)
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So rooftop solar's

coming up all over. It's just wherever in your community is going to be different for everybody. So it's figuring out where they can make those changes. If you're in a city where it rains all the time, maybe solar isn't the best resource for you, but see what other renewable energy sources are nearby for you to tap into or for your community to tap into. Rooftop solar is a great example. We have hundreds of thousands of acres of

Jessica (09:50)
Mm-hmm.

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (09:55)
rooftops here in the United States that is just bare not being used for anything. And a lot of companies and lot of individuals can take advantage of that by installing solar and selling it back to the utility as extra electricity or just cutting their own cost of electricity.

Jessica (10:11)
Okay, and so for those cities who solar might not be the best solution, can you offer some ideas for individuals who want to advocate to their communities and their leaders and also, know for themselves how they can make a difference?

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (10:28)
Yeah, hydroelectric, while it does have its issues, is still one of the largest forms of renewable energy. And we have so many dams built here in the United States that most communities can tap into some energy coming from that. There's also wind farms located all over the country that you may not see. And I know a lot of people are wary of windmills because you think you could see them for miles on out, and you can. But they're all over the place, and people are driving by them without even blinking or thinking about it. So it's just asking your community leaders, like,

where can we get a cleaner form of energy? And then how can we help? And then if you go to earthday.org, we have resources on best practices in terms of asking for those municipalities to make the switch. And also we have letter writing campaigns to go out saying like, even if you can't commit to moving towards renewable energy, let's stop the rollbacks of some of these regulations as well. And we have all of this already templated out. You just sign your name and send it off to your leader. And that's just an easy step.

Jessica (11:23)
That's a great resource.

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (11:25)
easy one to done. We believe it connects you directly to your local leader if you just look at your country or your city name and then you just send it off our template.

Jessica (11:35)
Wow, I love that because I feel like writing that letter can feel a little bit daunting and overwhelming, especially if you aren't well versed in any of this. And also, yeah, just the time that it might take to put together a letter like that. So thank you for offering those resources. And I'm sure your website is super, I've been on it and it's super user friendly. I'm usually looking at the plastic stuff, so.

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (11:40)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jessica (12:01)
So that's where my interest has generally been, taking me down the different tabs of your website that offer a lot of support in that way. But it sounds like this is a very hopeful situation and that everybody is uniting and moving in this right direction. And is there anything that you can talk about that would...

give us an opportunity to I guess maybe just like a talking point for our friends and our neighbors so that we can encourage them to also participate in writing these letters to our community. I know sometimes it can feel a little bit intimidating to talk about these kind of gloom and doom type subjects that have to do with the environment because it feels like it might go in a political direction. And this is like you're gonna.

you know, talk about writing to your local politicians and how do you help people with having those, you know, do you have any suggestions to how to help people have those conversations without it getting super political because things are so divided right now in our country politically, at least in the US. And so I feel like that might be an intimidating conversation to want to bring up with a friend or a neighbor or.

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (13:08)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica (13:16)
somebody that you don't want to get into a political argument with? And so can you give any advice on how to have that conversation without it getting, you ugly?

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (13:27)
Yeah, my best piece of advice when communicating about all environmental things to somebody that may deem any environmental talking point as a political issue is just make it about first people's money. So make it about the person's wallet. So in the case of renewable energy mentioned that there's growth opportunities for like 270,000 American solar jobs in the United States. And there's a 3.5 % growth in these solar jobs compared to just 2021.

Jessica (13:50)
Mm-hmm.

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (13:56)
So we're seeing all these jobs. just talk about the jobs and then talk about the amount of money that they can grow. The renewable energy worldwide was worth $1.21 trillion and is just projected to keep on growing annually. And I know throwing statistics at people's not always the best thing. So just say solar and renewable energy is growing economically. And if we want to be on the forefront of the economics, we need to invest in this. We had the inflation reduction act passed that

can save families 27 to $38 billion through investments in clean energy. So just make the case that we can save a crap ton of money if we make some investments towards renewable energy. The other thing you want to talk about is people's health. So if you talk about people's individual health, that is also, it's health and wallet, it's heart and wallet. Talk about when you switch to renewable energies, you're having a lower mortality rate because there's fewer air quality related illnesses.

Jessica (14:44)
Yeah.

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (14:54)
You're improving your mental health by reducing the stress and anxiety that can be associated with pollution and climate change. You're decreasing your greenhouse gas emissions, mitigating health risks associated with change like heat waves, floods, and the spread of infectious disease that all go up when we have a change in climate like we are currently in. Women's health is, I can keep going.

Jessica (15:15)
I

kind of like cringe at that because I feel like there goes that buzzword of climate change. And what if you're talking to someone who doesn't necessarily maybe not on that side of the fence, because again, I feel like everything's so divided. either, you think climate change is a thing and it's happening or it's like absolutely not. So just, mm-hmm.

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (15:22)
yeah.

Well, reduce health care costs due to

reductions of pollution related diseases. Leave out climate change. Go back to health. Just pivot back to health. Don't even mention the climate related health issues. Health care costs can potentially be reduced due to the prevention of illnesses treated by matter in the air caused by fossil fuels. So just don't mention climate. I guess you're right. Just don't mention climate as much as you can. Move away from it.

Jessica (15:45)
Yeah, go back to health. Go back to the health.

Mm-hmm,

because you just never know. Right.

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (16:09)
Maybe don't even mention fossil fuels. Yeah, maybe don't even mention fossil fuels. Mentioned traditional

fuel sources have been linked to heart attacks, respiratory diseases, stroke, and asthma, while renewable energy sources have not. So just little things like that. So just talk about how dangerous the fossil fuels can be and how expensive they can be compared to renewables.

Jessica (16:20)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, because I think that people can't deny that they like clean air, right? Yeah. And so again, I'm really glad that.

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (16:35)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica (16:44)
This is a very positive outlook on things. Can you share some inspiring examples that you've seen of everyday people or communities that are making this transition and making a real difference with clean energy?

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (17:00)
Yeah, sure thing.

Jessica (17:00)
either locally or

globally. I know you kind of like hit some in the beginning, but that was kind of a quick list. But if you could just kind of isolate one or two examples that you've seen, and that's gonna kind of leave people with a hopeful outlook.

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (17:07)
and kind of, yeah.

Iowa City, Iowa is a great example. They've submitted to us a proclamation of what they're planning on doing and just saying like, we're going to reduce emissions in our community. Iowa City, Iowa, not typically seen as a greeny liberal haven for environmental issues, but they recognize the utility of investing in renewable energy. They have set a goal of 45 % reduction of emissions 10 years ahead of their 2030 goals.

So they're already reaching 800 homes this year and have reached 3,700 homes in Iowa City in reducing the amount of energy that they put out there. So on top of renewable energy, they're also doing energy saving kits. have other places, Nashville, Tennessee, also not considered like a super greeny place. They saw 15 % of their energy come from renewable energy sources and they're making...

efforts in our own par to pass 50 % mark by 2027. So cities in the United States are already making this transition. Nice France is right on the coast of France, literally beautiful. I haven't been, but I really want to go. They are investing huge amounts into bio-generation and installing solar and renewable energy sources in their public areas to power these public spaces.

can keep, we have them all over the place that I keep going. Countries like Costa Rica, I believe is run 98 % on renewable energy. You know, you have the Nordic countries over in Europe that are using huge amounts of wind energy and hydroelectric energy with the amount of fords and dams they have. China is investing huge amounts and the amount of renewable energy that they are producing as far as surpassing like all of the world combined. So it's just.

Jessica (18:34)
You

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (19:01)
This transition is here in this house.

Jessica (19:04)
That's incredible. Thank you for going into some more detail. Is there a reason why some countries are already at like 98 % versus the US who should be the leader probably in something like this?

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (19:20)
It probably comes down to years upon years of lobbying from the fossil fuel industry and just being fed that we cannot afford to switch to renewable energy. We have to use petroleum. And it's only because petroleum just happens to be the moneymaker at the time. So they're able to invest the most amount of our policies. Therefore we end up with a bunch of fossil fuels. We're also a very car dependent country, which is not the same for a lot of these other countries.

And we just started building off of petroleum as our mainstay. Well, other countries had a chance to be like, what if we wanted to power using hydroelectric or solar? Why don't we just start doing that rather than becoming completely reliant on outside oil? Another reason for that is the United States has huge reserves of oil right under our feet. Other countries like Costa Rica it's more difficult to mine it out. It's super expensive. So the cheaper part is renewable energy.

Jessica (20:01)
Mm-hmm.

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (20:17)
50 years ago, that probably wasn't the case, but that's the case today. And that's even the case now here in the United States where it's cheaper to produce renewable energy than it is to drill for oil.

Jessica (20:27)
Hmm,

interesting. Yeah. So if you didn't build upon the infrastructure of depending on it in the first place and you were looking for other resources because you had a lack of it and you just had other resources that were more abundant, then that was what other countries did. So yeah, that makes sense.

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (20:35)
Yeah.

Yeah, and a lot of them are just thinking,

there's a thinking ahead, like, and I don't know if it was thinking ahead or just a happenstance, but it was, we want to be more energy independent. We don't want to be dependent on another nation to provide our energy for us, which we have seen cause issues all over the world, all the time. So was just a recognition of like, if we want to truly be out of the tots and out of the conflict when it comes to this resource, let's produce our own using water or the sun rather than having to buy it from somebody else.

Jessica (21:14)
Hmm, yeah, I am so on board with that. Just living in more in balance and in harmony with Mother Nature and the resources that are provided. Not that, you know, oil doesn't come from the earth as well. just doesn't.

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (21:18)
Yeah.

Jessica (21:28)
provide us a clean source of energy. We want something that is going to allow us to continue having clean air to breathe and water to drink and soil to grow our food, right? So those things are kind of important. Okay, well thank you for explaining all of that. I would like to share with listeners what

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (21:40)
Exactly.

Jessica (21:51)
can we do to help participate and support Earth Day on 2025? Are there any events, campaigns, anything going on that we should be aware of and that we can join in to support?

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (22:06)
Yeah, if you go straight to Earthday.org, we have a whole list of resources on how to participate in Earth Day. We're looking for people to submit how they're celebrating Earth Day. We're using the hashtag Earth Action Day because we're calling for people to take action on and around Earth Day this year. I may be wearing a shirt that says, every day is Earth Day, but it's especially Earth Day during April. So if you're doing an event for the planet around Earth Day, we'd love for you to post it, use our hashtag, tag us in it.

Jessica (22:25)
Yes.

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (22:31)
You'll be put up on our website just as we were rolling social feed. There are people attacking us Add your event to the map look at the map to see if there's an event going on near you We myself some interns some other employees are constantly trying to find events for people to attend and talking to those Organizers being like hey, we want to help get the word out about your event. How do we do it? They upload to our map When somebody from let's say, Wyoming reaches out to me and says hey

I want to find an event, I can go straight to the map and find one for them to attend. So just little things like that. And then we have a whole toolkit laying out how to get your community involved, how to get your government officials involved, how to get your faith groups involved, how to utilize your social media to be best present, how to best promote your messaging, because everybody talks through social media nowadays. So it's just little things like that, just to show that we're all here as a community still.

Jessica (23:20)
Hmm.

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (23:27)
environmental community and that despite the bad news also coming out about the environment, there's still this movement and the environmental movement isn't going.

Jessica (23:35)
That's right. And the more that we can come together and work towards protecting our planet and the environment and mother nature, the better off everything is going to be because it sounds like what's happening right now is because a lot of people have come together and moved in the same direction. So it's really, really inspiring and hopeful to hear.

this good news for a change.

Aidan Charron - EARTHDAY.ORG (24:04)
We just gotta keep up the momentum. We just

gotta keep poking people until I'm gonna keep on moving forward with this, so.

Jessica (24:10)
That's

right, it doesn't mean to stop talking about it and doing things. There's still progress to be made, especially here in the US. So definitely still take action. Yeah, all right, Aidan. Well, we are going to actually have another conversation for next week's episode. about plastic. And because that was our topic last year, Earth Day 2024.

And so we'll be looking forward next week to hearing an update on how all of that is going, the Global Plastics Treaty And we're also going to talk about some of the unseen effects of plastic and how it affects communities where it's produced and

incinerated to raise awareness about those things that we're not seeing on the forefront of the news. We're seeing a lot about microplastics now, which is amazing. And we're seeing a lot about plastic pollution and rivers and oceans. And I think that when it's connected to your health and it's affecting you and you can see it, it's

you know, conversation that more people are willing to have, but there's still a lot of things that are kind of in the background that aren't as seen. So we'll be talking about that on our next episode. And thank you so much, Aiden, for being here again with me. And thank you all for listening in for one year of the Live Lightly podcast.