Climate Innovation and Sustainable Solutions with Michael Scanlon

Climate change is an imminent crisis, fueled by escalating greenhouse gas levels and altering rainfall patterns. The consequences, from disrupted seasons in Guatemala to devastating forest fires in Canada, are evident worldwide. The alarming shift demands a collective focus on adaptation and resilience. Can we navigate the impending challenges, such as water scarcity in Colorado and the relentless fury of unmanageable wildfires, to secure a sustainable future? In this episode, I interviewed Michael Scanlon, the Founder of ClimateCon. ClimateCon was a conference that celebrated climate innovation and encouraged actionable solutions through breakout sessions and workshops. Our conversation revolved around recent advancements, climate sustainability, transportation solutions, and the looming threat of ecological collapse. Moreover, we delved into the impact of greenhouse gasses, citing examples from around the world, including Guatemala, Syria, and Canada. Tune in and take a step towards a greener future! --- Listen to the podcast here: Climate Innovation and Sustainable Solutions with Michael Scanlon Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. Now, I’ve been studying quite a bit about what’s gone wrong with society a little bit psychologically, why so many people are in a terrible emotional state, why there’s so much depression and anxiety, and a couple of themes have come around in many of the things that I’ve read, many of the things that I’ve watched, many of the things that I’ve heard from people, and that is what’s lacking in our current society that we used to have plenty of at some point in the past, and that is community and purpose. And so, as a result of hearing this and seeing this, I’m here wanting to support any time people can gather together a community, especially if they can gather together to serve some kind of a purpose, and that’s why I’m here to showcase to you an event coming up here in Denver in roughly two months from when this podcast will initially air called ClimateCon!, and to share a little bit about this event, I’m here with ClimateCon! founder, ClimateCon! organizer, Michael Scanlon. --- Michael, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me, Steven. It’s an honor to be here. Well, thank you for coming on and talking about it. I mentioned in my intro, we all need community and we all need purpose, and one of the things that’s going to help get us out of what I refer to as the little dark age of the last 15 years, a period of time in which we’ve been lacking it, is to bring more people into something like that. So, let’s start from the beginning. Michael, what first brought on ClimateCon!? Because I know you’ve been planning this for several months at least by now. Yeah, yeah. It launched in April 2023, started it in Earth Month. So my background, I had been doing increasingly larger and bigger events leading into the pandemic. In 2019, I actually founded a conference company and I was doing major conferences. I had a conference on March 5th and 6th 2020. The governor was going to come and then the security guy came back and said, “The government can’t come, he has to tell the world coronavirus is here,” and so that company kind of scattered into the wind with the coronavirus. And as I was literally driving rideshare to make a living. I kept thinking at some point, I got to get back into conferences. The series of conferences previous had been around cannabis, cannabis policy in particular, and I wanted to do something more impactful, something more meaningful, something that could have big impact and I kept coming back to climate so that’s where the climate came from was it’s something I’ve been obsessed with for 30 years now and I keep thinking why aren’t we doing more about climate? Why aren’t I doing more about climate? And so, finally, I am. And so you decided to take what you know how to do, and this is a moment out there for anyone listening, I think I’ve kind of covered this idea before, taking something that you know how to do and using it towards something that you’re passionate about. And so you’re like, “I wanna do something regarding climate,” seeing what’s going on, and what do you know how to do? Put on big events. I love your point that people should take something they know how to do and I think they should take something they know how to do and push it to the next level and get uncomfortable with it. And so that was what I kept doing with the events, that’s how I made it to conferences, I just kept doing bigger and bigger events. And that’s why I want to franchise ClimateCon! because the idea of doing a single ClimateCon! annually doesn’t scare me, but the idea of doing 100 ClimateCons! a year, that gets me on edge and makes me know I’m pushing to the right goal. That’s awesome. So one of the things I really like to do on this show is showcase everybody’s personal story. So, your story before the pandemic, before ClimateCon!, before all this involves putting on events, putting on larger and larger events. What drew you to that as a career path? What drew you to that as to what you wanted to do in humanity? Well, I finally sat down in my mid 40s and said what am I good at and what do I want to do with my life. I kept coming back to I like being around people. Right now, I’m here in my home office, yippee, I’m kitted out at my best sitting in my home office by myself. My best self happens when I’m around a group of people and we’re all working towards something.Share on X That’s what got me started doing events, which, honestly, was when I started Chamber of Commerce and that’s what drove me to do conferences was I really wanted to get into major, major scale events. And ClimateCon! on January 23rd, we’re looking at 250 to 500 people and it’ll just get bigger from there. We’ll get them to where we’re drawing thousands of people. Now, what is the key to having events grow larger and larger? Because I’ve been at events where there’s a small, intimate group of, say, a dozen to two dozen people, and I’ve been in events with thousands and they’re going to take different considerations in order to make them something valuable for the participants. I started with networking events, doing like a monthly networking event. Anybody can do a monthly networking event and I encourage people to start there if they’re looking at events. Even if you’re still going to do a bigger event, do a monthly networking event to build your bigger event. And the first key there is always have new blood. Because you’ll have regular people who come around. Think about 1 Million Cups where you and I met. There’s always somebody new in that room. Always. At least one or two people raised their hands when they asked who’s new to 1 Million Cups. Yeah, they’re so good about that, and that keeps the regulars coming around. When I did the chamber, that was key. With all our monthly meetings, we needed that. When you start going to a big annual event, it’s a whole different thing. I could almost do a whole series on what it takes to build, but part of it is never quit, which is why I was so frustrated with the pandemic, was that when I started that one, I was losing money but I knew that if I just never quit, it would grow and be something big. And I had to do such a reset, I thought why am I in this topic? I’m going to shift to a better one. But the climate one, I’ll just never quit. Yeah. And it might take three events, it might take one event, it might take seventeen events, but, eventually, it will be profitable and huge. Now, I need to ask you, as someone who’s also extroverted, someone who also prefers to get out there in the community, how it is that you got through the pandemic? Oh, man. Not well. I struggled. And things that like --- because I’ve written a few books and one of my books, it’s an unpublished manuscript, more accurately, one of them, when I talk about processing through failure, I say don’t do it in front of the fridge. When you’re in the anger stage, don’t process through the anger stage in front of the refrigerator. I ate too much. Well, as soon as I could, I started to travel. This is what I did. The summer of 2021, I went on a couple of nice, extended vacations in places where I had been before, some places that I was comfortable with. That was kind of the key for me. And just reconnecting with old friends. I did a fair amount of that and that helped a lot. Yeah, about a year ago, I was back at a resort in Cancun that I had been to before and I actually started talking with other people because we always hang out at what I refer to as the party pool so there’s the party pool at his resort and then there’s the more private --- it’s actually great how this resort does it, they kind of let everyone have their own different experience, and I started talking with some other people who are regular travelers to that resort, people who have their membership and everything like that, and they actually said that the winter of 2020 was one of their best trips ever because it was such a different vibe. It was, I don’t know, just different because there weren’t as many people there but the people who were there, they just felt like they just had to go all out because they’ve been cooped up for several months and it’s just such an interesting way you can kind of get a little bit outside of your own head when you go and change your scenery in every way, whether it be traveling to another country or just going for a hike in nature 20 minutes away from your home. Yeah, I was just going to say, the hikes in nature, I know I took a ton of those during the pandemic. That’s always been one of my go-tos when I’m struggling with anything....