Interview with Alex Smith, July 14, 2023

SMITH: 00:01:00Thanks, Jesse.

CAGLE: Uh, I’m here with Alex Smith, uh, this is Lauren Cagle. We're doing an interview for the Kentucky Climate Consortium's, uh, Climate Oral History Project on Climate Research, Activism, and Policymaking in Kentucky. It is July 14th, 2023, we're at the Nunn Center Recording Studio on campus at UK [1] and, uh, thank you, Alex.

SMITH: Thank you, Cagle, for the invite--Doctor Cagle--

CAGLE: --doctor--(laughs). Yes, I stand on, uh, formality. Um, so, we'll start with either the easiest question or the hardest question. Tell me a little bit about yourself.

SMITH: Oh, gosh, um, uh Alex Smith, uh, son of, uh, John Michael and Lou Anne Smith, um, as you mentioned before--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

SMITH: --hard to find on the internet--(Cagle laughs). Uh, not the most unique word, but--or the unique name. But, um, yeah, I've been in Lexington. I'm a Lexington resident. I have been in Lexington now since about 2015. Uh, I live with my partner, Rachel, over 00:02:00across from West Sixth Brewery and, um, yeah, we love our animals. We got backyard chickens, and a dog--couple dogs, and a cat. And we really, um, yeah, just enjoy walking around town and getting engaged in the community.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: And gosh, I think about climate change all--(Cagle laughs)--the time.

CAGLE: Yeah, which is why you're here--(both laugh). Because you not only think about it, but do things about it--I mean, thinking about it is important, too.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: Yeah, so how does that show up in your life?

SMITH: Goodness, um, it's really changed over the years. I made a really intentional choice around 2015 to, uh, work directly in climate, uh, related things. I had been a software consultant and 00:03:00had a client who was talking to me about climate change consistently. She was a member of Citizens Climate Lobby and I had known about climate change before this. I'd worked on a solar project in school, I--in college, I graduated in 2014. I kind of explored solar, um, but didn't really understand kind of the, the actual kind of situation of climate change. And this, uh, client of mine had been talking to me about it, uh, in between, you know, work sessions and things. And, um, eventually, I just got to a point where I really felt like I needed to be working in that space directly. It just seemed like a really huge deal to me and it didn't, honestly, didn't make sense to, to not be working in it for me. Um, so, I left that job and I got solar training out in Colorado and have since been working directly in this space. It kind of evolved from a solutions-oriented approach, um, 00:04:00which definitely has its value, um, to really just--I think, wrestling with--I feel like, daily how it shows up to maybe get directly more close to your answer or to your question--um, really daily how it shows up is just really trying to wrestle with this--I really think, question about how we're living our lives here in, um, modernity or Western industrial capitalism and how fundamentally tied and connected that is to, uh, the challenges that we're facing. So, um, yeah, everything I buy or don't buy or eat, um, my most recent stint before my current job, uh, was greenhouse gas emissions--(laughs)--and doing emissions inventories. So, I'm really familiar with the footprint of a lot of products and I just, I think about it all the time.

CAGLE: That was with Schneider, right?

SMITH: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

CAGLE: It's hard not to once you know what 00:05:00you're looking for--

SMITH: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

CAGLE: --to just see it everywhere, whether that's like, thinking about emissions inventory or thinking about like, how we're just sort of trained to live in certain ways, or yeah. Um, I had no idea that it was like, really one person that sort of pushed you in this new direction. So, this client, the project that you were working on was not climate related, this was like sort of sidebar conversations.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: So, given--and we'll get to this, uh, at some point, but given the work we're doing, you and I together with climate conversations, that's really interesting--(laughs)--

SMITH: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

CAGLE: --to know. I mean, I assume this has been on your mind as we do this--these climate conversations work.

SMITH: Yep--

CAGLE: --yeah.

SMITH: Absolutely.

CAGLE: Yeah. Okay, well, let's go back a little. So, you were obviously open to that pushing, um, or open to the--becoming persuaded by those conversations. Um, so, how did you, how'd you get there? I guess 00:06:00. You're from Kentucky originally--

SMITH: --(laughs)--yeah--

CAGLE: --right?

SMITH: Yeah, I, I grew up in South Central Kentucky in Glasgow, Kentucky, Barron County. Um, I moved in eighth grade to Louisville, Kentucky, um, which--right, some might argue isn't Kentucky, but also is--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

SMITH: --um, but yeah, so I went to high school in Louisville. I never super rooted in Louisville necessarily, although that's where my parents are. Um, so yeah, I've been in Kentucky pretty much my entire life. I went to college outside of Kentucky, I lived in Atlanta for a year, I lived in Colorado for a summer, and then I came back to Kentucky and I've tried to get away a couple of times--(Cagle laughs)--and it just, uh, it just keeps pulling me back.

CAGLE: Why?

SMITH: Oh, that's hard to answer. Um, most recently, I continue to feel really, um, drawn to doing this type of work here. Uh, I know there are a lot of different and higher paying jobs 00:07:00and different opportunities at other job markets at other areas of the world, especially for stuff that I've got experience in. Um, but there's not a ton of people doing it here and I don't, I don't want to, yeah, if I'm not doing it here--willing to do it here, then like who else? Like, yeah, obviously other people will step to the table too, but--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --I don't want to jump ship.

CAGLE: Right, yeah. I think, well, Kentucky needs that--(laughs). Anywhere needs that, right? People who are really committed to the place. And that's one of the things we're trying to do with this project, right? Is, is really make sense of, uh, the reality that people are really rooted in and care about this place and push back against kind of larger narratives, like national narratives about Kentuckians and about Kentucky. Um, so, are you still connected? Do you feel like to South, you said South Central or Southeast?

SMITH: South Central.

CAGLE: South Central, Kentucky. Um, oh, right, Glasgow. Um, are you still sort of connected down there 00:08:00if you're not so much rooted in Louisville or is it you're really a Lexingtonian now, right?

SMITH: Yeah, I--I've, I've wrestled with this question a lot. Where are my, where are my roots are exactly? I, I have most, they're most established in Lexington to me at this point. Um, my family moved around a lot, my dad is a doctor, but did his training through the army. So, they moved around a lot and when they, um--I was born pretty much at the end of his service time. So, my folks have, uh, my folks moved back to, uh, Kentucky shortly after I was born--when I was like two or three, we were in Denver at the time, but they moved back to Kentucky and have been in Kentucky since.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: But I think they lost elements of that rootedness too. They were both--they're both from Springfield, Kentucky, uh, but we're very intentional about getting out of--(Cagle laughs)--Springfield, Kentucky. I think there's like 2000 people that are really small rural community, but Glasgow was like the closest they could get to family and my dad could still find work. 00:09:00So--but we didn't really feel super connected to that place. And Louisville has felt closer, it's really, it's a lot more diverse, which I think my parents really enjoy having lived everywhere from like Colorado, they lived in Hawaii, they lived like all over the country. So, Louisville has been good for them--

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: --but, I think I've looked for that and looked for that and trying to just set up roots in a place. I do feel really drawn here from like a family perspective and this place, I think it's so beautiful. Uh, there's a lot of, uh, challenges here with certain people and then there's also some people that are like, I found a lot of really--like people that are really connect with as well--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

SMITH: --so, it's, it's an interesting like paradox or like dichotomy, I guess.

CAGLE: Yeah. Um, so. in that upbringing, like was--were environmental issues present? Was that something you guys thought about or talked about in your family?

SMITH: Uh, not super heavily or consistently, but I 00:10:00regularly think back to this time where my dad and I were driving in his--he had a little red sports car, right? White man with a little red sports car, shocker. But he--we are driving and, uh, we got the, it's a little Miata and we got the windows down and I had taken the--I was fidgeting and had taken the, the Gatorade wrapper off my Gatorade bottle and it flew out the window. My dad noticed this and he pulled over on the side of the road and we picked up trash for I don't know how long, but that was a very much a--we, we don't litter.

CAGLE: Right.

SMITH: Um, so, that was--

CAGLE: --wow--

SMITH: --yeah.

CAGLE: That is like, not just don't do that, but we're actually going to like change our plans--

SMITH: --yeah.

CAGLE: And I mean, obviously that was formative, it stuck with you.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: How old were you when, when this happened?

SMITH: I was probably nine or ten.

CAGLE: Uh-huh [affirmative]. Did he talk to you about why you were doing this or just, we don't litter and then that's it?

SMITH: It was, I don't remember a ton of conversation about it. 00:11:00It was pretty self-explanatory. It was challenging because it was like--it was an act--I didn't like actively throw--

CAGLE: --right--

SMITH: --the litter out. I had like left it in the floor--

CAGLE: --Uh-huh [affirmative]--

SMITH: --and it flew out the window.

CAGLE: Right, yeah.

SMITH: Um, so that was a little challenging, but--

CAGLE: --I lost a lot of cassette tapes in the nineties that way, yeah--(laughs).

SMITH: Took off--

CAGLE: There, I left it on the dashboard and it would just, yeah. Right, so I guess there's a sense of a little bit of injustice.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: It was a little weird, but looking back at it, yeah, that was, it clearly made a lot of sense and there were other elements. I mean, it was very much like, uh, keep things clean, take care of things.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: Um, plenty of consumerism--like we bought plenty of things and my dad, my dad's a radiologist, so we are, uh, wealthy. I mean, relatively wealthy. Um, so we were able to buy a lot of things that are very comfortable--I’ve had a very, very comfortable life. But, it wasn't the same 00:12:00type of consumerism that I saw from peers or folks of that similar thing. Like we, we definitely bought things, but it was, I felt like a lot more intentional. It wasn't nearly as conscious or, or intentional as I would be now or today or even the past several years. Um, but it was--my dad's always been about buying less, but buying something like that's quality and going to last and taking care of it.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: So, he's bought a lot of toys that way--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --but he also, uh, I've seen the, I've seen the man use a plastic, uh, like bladder for camping for so long that it disintegrate--it fell apart--

CAGLE: --(laughs)--uh-huh [affirmative]--

SMITH: --it fell apart from his camping gear that he had bought in like the eighties.

CAGLE: Wow.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: I was wearing rubber boots this morning that my mom bought in England in 1987 and they're still going, yeah--

SMITH: --yeah.

CAGLE: Um, I fear the day they disintegrate.

SMITH: No.

CAGLE: Yeah, um, so, 00:13:00then let's see, high school you went to Xavier, right?

SMITH: Yeah, I went to Saint X.

CAGLE: Yeah, um, and which is in Louisville, a Catholic private school.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: Was there any discussion of, I mean, you mentioned having kind of learned about climate and environmental issues prior to these conversations with the client--the software client.

SMITH: Yeah, I was thinking about this sort of recently. I didn't, I don't remember learning a ton about the environment or environmental science there. I do--I did have a physics teacher, I guess my junior year that, um, for lack of a better term was--I realized now it was a bit of a prepper--(Cagle laughs)--in the sense that he was really about, he would always talk about how he had his farm property and he was really about getting a water source. He was really about like, I'm going to have, I want property with access to water. And this would have been in 2008 or nine--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: So, I remember that, but I don't remember 00:14:00there being like a lot of context or conversation around that necessarily.

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: So, yeah.

CAGLE: So, then when you went to college Vanderbilt for--were you engineering all the way through or you knew that's what you wanted to do?

SMITH: Yeah, I did mechanical engineering. Um, yeah--(laughs)--yeah, I never thought I actually wanted to be an engineer, but I knew that that was a worthwhile degree--(Cagle laughs)--to get. It would open up a lot of opportunities for me. Um, yeah.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. And what did you want to do then?

SMITH: I didn't exactly know, um, I would argue that I still don't know--

CAGLE: --okay--(laughs)--

SMITH: --I'm, I’m still figuring out what I want to be when I grow up. Um, but I knew that crunching numbers or, or being like a, a--an engineer in practice as I'd been shown was not necessarily the thing I wanted to do. Though-- 00:15:00I mean, before engineering, I wanted to be an architect or a doctor. I was, uh, advised not to--(laughs)--um, decided to be an engineer. I was like, okay, that's cool. I want to be a mechanical engineer, I want to design sports cars.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: Um, so--

CAGLE: --that’s cool--

SMITH: (Laughs)--yeah, yeah, so I took German in high school. So I was like, I'm going to take German in high school. I'm going to be a mechanical engineer and I'm going to go work for a German car company--they make all the nice cars. And then at some point along the engineering way, relatively early on, I realized that, um, which this is really immature and selfish, but I realized I was like, oh, as a mechanical engineer for a German car company, I wouldn't design the car. I would work on like the door handle--

CAGLE: --right--

SMITH: --on said car that like hundreds of people would be working on. I was like, oh, that's, that’s a lot less exciting--(Cagle laughs). So, but reality check that I wish I would have gotten earlier in the game, but this is what it is. 00:16:00CAGLE: Yeah. So, then how did you end up in software? So, um, so I think because I wasn't super clear about what I wanted to do, I ended up in a place where I was just looking for--just--opportunity--whatever worked. Um, and I ended up getting a role with a software consulting company, I guess, spring of my senior year and a lot of my--

CAGLE: --and this would’ve been 2014--

SMITH: --yeah 2014--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --and a lot of my buddies were doing similar type things, but they were doing it, um--the place I worked at a start up, so I was on staff. A lot of folks that I graduated with were doing it for like the bigger consulting firms and stuff like that, doing similar things, um, but, um--third party or outsourced. So yeah, one of my best friends had a software consulting job in Atlanta and they're just, you know, they were happy. These--a lot of different types of companies just wanted engineers of any type. 00:17:00 So--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --um, yeah, I found that job and my best friend was going to be in Atlanta, had a bunch of other friends that were going to be in Atlanta. So, I was like, bam--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

SMITH: --let’s, let's give it a go.

CAGLE: So, were you programming or?

SMITH: So, it was healthcare--it was, um, it was software implementation consulting. So, I wasn't programming, but I was configuring software.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: So, it had a, um, I forget what the technical term would be, but some sort of like a, a user interface that I could--I didn't have to hard code, I could--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

SMITH: --a visual programming thing--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --and it was, it was tangential--

CAGLE: --like a GUI [2] kind of thing?

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: The graphical user interface?

SMITH: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

CAGLE: Yeah, okay.

SMITH: So, um, and it was a healthcare software company. So, I have always wanted to do something that like made a difference or made an impact. And this was something in healthcare and it was, um, you know, because my dad's a doctor, I could--I was really familiar with that world. So, I was like, okay, I'm working with clients that I'm like familiar with, um, their language and their space and everything. So--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --it just felt like a good fit.

CAGLE: And you must've been working 00:18:00closely over a period of time with specific clients if you had like this experience with one who affected--(laughs)--your career change so much.

SMITH: Yeah, they would give us a book of clients and I would, uh, essentially, uh, configure, it was a scheduling automation software. So, I would like configure--I would learn their schedule from them, configure the software to make their schedules for them--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

SMITH: --and, uh, train them how to use it. So, yeah, there were, gosh, at least at periods of time, you know, you're talking to clients two or three times a week at least--

CAGLE: --right--

SMITH: --an hour or two at a time. So--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --and for bigger clients, it was on site. This one that was so impactful was not, but, but for bigger clients it was on site. So, you would really get to know--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --uh, the people you're working with.

CAGLE: So, then when did you leave this job?

SMITH: I left this job summer of 2015--

CAGLE: --Uh-huh [affirmative]--

SMITH: --early summer of 2015--

CAGLE: --Uh-huh [affirmative] and went to where?

SMITH: Colorado. I quit with no real plan--(Cagle laughs). No 00:19:00super serious--no job lined up. Um, gosh, I think this is a worthy story to share. I, so, I because of this person I'd been talking to, I decided to research climate change a lot more and was really learning about the impacts and sea level rise and all the, you know, really sea level rise was the main thing on my mind at that point. And I guess it was like early summer, I took a--I took a week off and I had known that I wanted to look for other things, but I hadn't really had the space to really process it and come to terms with it. But, I took a week off and went to the Gulf Coast with my family and it's a place that I'd been to several times throughout my life. And I couldn't help but walk around and be like, as we were going to these different places, I was just like, will I take my grandkids here? Like will my kids even be able to go to this place? What will this place look like? I was seeing new construction. I was like, do they know--(Cagle laughs)--because 00:20:00what are they thinking? Um, and so I'm like thinking that kind of stuff while I'm down there. I'm like, I got like--it just kind of came together. I was like, I'm going to do something. I did some research. I was like, I'm going to find a place to get solar training. Um, I found this little place out in Colorado called Solar Energy International. And I pretty much decided I was going to quit and take this--they had a program that was like a series of classes--it's a very informal education place, it's not like a college or anything like that. Um, but, they had a, a track and I was like, okay, I'm going to--it was like--I forget how much it costs, but I was like, I'm going to make that investment and just go and get this training and then find work from there--

CAGLE: --wow.

SMITH: Um, so, I'd made that decision and I got back to the office the following Monday and my buddy there was like--I think it was Monday and I was--where I was tropical Friday vibes--(Cagle laughs)--already. I was like--I was just super relaxed, 00:21:00I just got--you know, transitioning back from vacation. My buddy was like, “you look just like Peter Gibbons”--(Cagle laughs). I was like, “who?” He's like, “oh, go watch Office Space. Like now.”

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: I watched it that night and I was like, oh yeah--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --I, I was done with that place--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --and I was like, I'm, I’m going to roll on--

CAGLE: -yeah. Might as well wear that tropical shirt.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: Exactly.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: Oh, that's awesome. Where were you researching? Like, where were you finding information and reading about climate?

SMITH: Oh gosh, I don't necessarily remember. I am--I would not consider myself a super skilled researcher, so it probably wasn't fantastic, but I, I remember Citizens’ Climate Lobby, you know, the resources that they had talked about and, and I don't remember which ones in particular, but I remember just kind of following internet rabbit holes from there--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

SMITH: --and, and exploring things and, um, yeah, I've learned a lot since then, but--

CAGLE: --yeah. Yeah, I ask in part cause the--so, some of 00:22:00my research related to climate, um, and climate communication and--is about all of the ways you can go wrong--(laughs)--doing, doing one's own research online because there's so much intentional misinformation kind of laid out like little, little trap lines for people to stumble into. So, yeah, so I was just curious like what you're reading that helped you avoid that. Um, okay, so how was the program--the training program?

SMITH: Oh, it was fantastic. I was incredibly anxious, um, for due reason, right? I was, uh--2015, so I was like twenty-four, um, and had just quit and left all my friends and I was alone in a small hippie town in Colorado doing training--

CAGLE: --where is it?

SMITH: It's in Paonia, Colorado, which I highly recommend anybody gets a chance to go visit places--just stunning. Um, but yeah, it was really gorgeous, 00:23:00the training was really great, I was really anxious, uh, I didn't know what was next. I was balancing that out though with like--just a lot of, um--there's a lot of like personal growth and, and discovery going on as well while I was out there. I lived and worked at a little, um, bed and breakfast--not an Airbnb, an actual bed and breakfast--(Cagle laughs)--that had like an organic farm and, and people I could talk to and there were a lot of people moving in and out that I had a lot of good conversations with. Um, but the program was great and I did--it was a mix of like hands on and theory. So, the first couple of weeks there was--um, yeah, it was really a blend and then I think there was a week--I did like a combination of different week long classes, um, and was there for I guess a month--about. So, um, yeah, really good blend of, of actually like 00:24:00solving the problems and doing the engineering stuff I was really familiar with but applied in this specific way. You know, I'd like I'd taken circuits but like, okay, let's do circuits problems on a, a solar installation and like--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

SMITH: --different things like that. So, um, it, it wasn't--I already--I had a good understanding already. It just needed to be like applied in a different way.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: Um, so, yeah, I learned a ton and the people were fantastic. I mean, they were, they were super nice and, um, really informative. And then--actually probably the best and most memorable part was the--I, I had--my intention going into all of this was actually to do international solar work. I couldn't figure out how to make it happen exactly, but that's what I was Googling--(laughs)--when I was like--and that's when I found Solar Energy International--(laughs).

CAGLE: That makes sense.

SMITH: Yeah and, um, so I had done--and right, that was still a time when there was--it was like the tail end of this transition from like 00:25:00off grid systems versus everything just being grid tied. Like the vast majority of things had started to be grid tied, but there were still people learning off grid, uh, battery based systems. So, I did take--I actually took the off grid track technically, which most of my courses were grid tied specific and a lot has to do with both. Um, but the last week I took an off grid class in particular battery based and there was, there was an instructor that I was really close with, really enjoyed working with him. Um, gosh, on the spot, I'm going to blank on his name. Mike, I know, I can't remember his last name. But just a, just a really interesting soul and person. And he worked half the year as, as a solar installer and then the other half the year he backpacked and mountaineered and travelled. And while he did that, he would like install solar in like Nepal, like ran--just wherever he was, he'd like find it--he was, um--I don't know what type of Buddhist, but 00:26:00he would like, find like these temples and religious communities that would need and he'd like install them a little solar installation while he was on this mountaineering trip. Um, but, I got really lucky and he invited me to install--it was to actually install a micro hydro, um, system at a cabin in Colorado that was at like ten--over 10,000 feet and then also to like troubleshoot their solar. So, we like spent, I guess it was my fifth week there spent at this off grid, you know, remote cabin installing this and like hanging out with this guy and like hearing all these stories about all this, all this travel and all this kind of stuff. So, um, that was really--yeah, he, he really left, left his mark for sure.

CAGLE: That's so cool. So, micro hydro, like, like a stream? Like--

SMITH: --yeah, yeah. So, there was a tiny, uh, motor hydro turbine--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --in a stream 00:27:00 --

CAGLE: --Uh-huh [affirmative]--

SMITH: --and then we had to lay the pipe between there and, and the electrical from there to the, to the cabin.

CAGLE: Oh, that's so neat.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: Yeah. It was--

CAGLE: --I didn't even know that was a thing people were doing, but it makes sense--

SMITH: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

CAGLE: --if you've got running water nearby, might as well. So, um, so at this point, are you still thinking that you could find ways to do the international solar work?

SMITH: I had probably, for the most part avoided thinking about--(Cagle laughs)--tactically--

CAGLE: --Uh-huh [affirmative]--

SMITH: --what my actual next thing was.

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: Um, yeah, I, I--I'm not a great planner.

CAGLE: Uh-huh--(laughs).

SMITH: My psychiatrist would say that was ADHD. I learned--found that out recently, that was fun--

CAGLE: --uh-huh [affirmative], congratulations--

SMITH: --but yeah, it's true--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --but, um, yeah, I did not have a super clear or realistic plan. I was like, I'm gonna figure it out.

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: Um, and I ultimately did. Um, but 00:28:00no, I, I didn't want to like directly like this guy was clearly alone--this guy lived out of his--he--when people asked him where he lived, he said Tacoma. That guy--he lived out of his Tacoma--his Toyota Tacoma--

CAGLE: --right, okay--

SMITH: Um--(laughs)--so, they very much floated and, um, yeah.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: --so I--he felt like a lone wolf. I wasn't gonna like directly ask him like, hey, can I just like work with you or whatever. But--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

SMITH: --I, I had in mind--really all I had in mind was I wanted to apprentice for some I was like, I want to be an apprentice--I want to like really learn and soak up from somebody who's just an expert--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

SMITH: --in this stuff. That's really all I had in mind.

CAGLE: Yeah. So, yeah, five weeks you're there.

SMITH: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

CAGLE: And then what?

SMITH: So, I got back from that trip. And I guess after that trip it was--

CAGLE: --back to Atlanta? Or back to, uh, Kentucky--

SMITH: --I, I was still in Colorado--

CAGLE: --heard--

SMITH: --I, I, I had, had--

CAGLE: --oh, 00:29:00right, yeah--

SMITH: --I'd planned to stay there for two months, actually, but I'd finished my solar training. And so I'm on like week six or so out there and that's when the reality sets in a little bit, alright. I'm seeing the bank account go down. Like, okay, I should really figure out what, what I'm going to do--I got my training now. And yeah, it was, uh--yeah, uh--what's the woo-woo word for it? Um, synchronicity--

CAGLE: --Uh-huh [affirmative], it was meant (??)--

SMITH: --or what? Yeah, it felt very right. But I on--there was a Sunday afternoon and I was like, okay, I'm going to get down to business on this job search. And I made a list of pretty much all the solar installers in Colorado that I could find that I would want to work for that might have this like apprenticeship type opportunity. I was like, I made a list, I prioritize them, and I was like, I'm going to start cold calling and reaching out, uh, tomorrow--on Monday. And the next morning, I got a call 00:30:00from Kentucky. And it was, uh, Steve Ricketts from a local solar installer here--Solar Energy Solutions. And he was like, “yeah, we got your application, uh, a, a few months ago. We don't have quite that position here, but we--I think we have a position that you'd be a really good fit for.” And I was like, really thrown off. And--but yeah, they had a--they were looking for a design engineer. And I had applied--they actually, they were kind of who gave me the idea of this apprentice bit, because they had a similar type role. I forget the title, they called it, but it was like in it was before I had actually taken the trip to Florida or like really decided I was going down the solar thing I like had randomly found--so I was kind of like looking into solar still before that, but not super seriously and had like sent my application in. So, they like had my info. But yeah, they had the design engineer position and within a few weeks, I was, uh, doing solar design 00:31:00in Kentucky.

CAGLE: That's, yeah--(laughs).

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: Serendipity? I don't--yeah--

SMITH: --yeah--

CAGLE: --synchronicity? Yeah.

SMITH: Well, my buddy who was known for his sharp tongue at the, at--where I worked in Atlanta. Um, he had said, “Well, you wanted to do solar in a developing country.” Oh, it's like shots fired, buddy. Shots fired--

CAGLE: --boy. I mean, to be fair, actually, when it comes to solar, I would argue most of the U.S. is developing country--(laughs)--when it comes specifically to solar. Yeah, so where is solar energy solutions based?

SMITH: Um, they're based in Lexington.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: Um, they have been a bit regional in their service territory over the years, um, but they're over off of Newtown Pike.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Yeah and focus on Lexington area or state wide or--

SMITH: --uh, regional there in-- 00:32:00it's shifted over the years. Um, yeah, in this market, you very much have to find work wherever you can.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: Uh, but they were, um, in Kentucky, pretty much all of Kentucky, uh, Ohio and Indiana.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. So, that was 2015.

SMITH: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

CAGLE: And you were with them until?

SMITH: No, I had, I had, I had a storied time there. I, I was technically with them until 2020.

CAGLE: Okay.

SMITH: On and off.

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: But they were my only--that was the only place I worked full time. I took a couple breaks--

CAGLE: --okay--

SMITH: --in there.

CAGLE: Yeah. I ask in part because that is a really interesting time period to have been working in solar in Kentucky--

SMITH: --yes.

CAGLE: Um, yeah. So--

SMITH: --it's a nice way to put it--(both laugh)--

CAGLE: --okay. Well, um--(laughs)--could you explain from your perspective, like, I,

I know this just from somebody who like reads the paper and, you know, gravitates to reading the environmentally related 00:33:00stories. Um, from your perspective as someone who's actually in the industry? Yeah, what was that period like? Why is it--(laughs)--an interesting story?

SMITH: Yeah. Yeah. So, it's hard to talk about personally, it’s, it’s really frustrating, made me really angry, really, really angry. Um, it made me so angry, because, um, gosh, that's not a super, I can't just simply say because why. Um, but I guess to get better context, it was really complicated because of net metering here in Kentucky, and, um, fundamentally being a regulated utility market, uh, with, uh, primarily large for profit utility companies, who really have a lot of influence. Um, so yeah, I think net metering, Kentucky had a, a really--gosh, just a really great group of advocates--really 00:34:00small group, um, that were super active on it and got actually really good net metering in place in like 2008, I think it was--

CAGLE: --can you explain what net metering is?

SMITH: Yeah, net metering is essentially a word that explains the policy for how, um, for how independent energy producers, particularly solar producers, get paid or credited for their solar consumption or, or solar production that they don't consume.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: Alright. So, solar at a house that is being produced, that house is going to consume as much as it can, oftentimes, because folks are away during the day, they're producing excess and that excess goes back onto the grid makes the meter flow backwards, as people might say, right. And, so you have to figure out policy of how people get credited or paid for that, um, excess and net metering was came along to essentially say, we'll just for 00:35:00every one you send to us, we'll give you one. And it's just a net one to one. And with proper net metering in place, solar is a banging investment. I mean, it is--

CAGLE: --for the individual--

SMITH: --for the individual--

CAGLE: --like for the individual, like producer, could just a homeowner--

SMITH: --for the home owner, for businesses--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --for anybody. And, and that's, I feel like that's what gets lost in the story about solar, and especially as scary about this time is like, oh, we're going solar. It's mostly corporate and, you know, these large utility farms and things. What--to me is so radical about solar is communities and places can basically invest in power plants themselves.

CAGLE: mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: It is remarkably affordable continues to get cheaper. It is radically democratizing for this system that is radically not democratic. Um, so anyways, we--yeah, we that's a whole--(Cagle laughs)--discussion 00:36:00in and of itself. But, um, we got net metering in place, the industry, you know, these advocates got net metering in place. And that was I mean, the industry wasn't even like big at that time or anything. But it's, you know, folks were like knew this was what other states were doing. We got that in place and it was really simple. It was you got a retail rate credit. So, that works out great on the investment because retail rates going to go up over time, but you've got protection built in because basically your investment, your--the value of what you produce is going to go up at the same amount. So, you're like hedging against inflation and all this different stuff that, um, just makes the numbers like really awesome. Um, which makes it really easy to reach folks that might not normally just invest for like environmental reasons and whatnot--

CAGLE: --yeah. Because that initial invest, like whatever it costs to get the panels installed. Essentially it pays for itself is the idea here, right?

SMITH: Yeah, the way I like to think of it as is a system is going to last about 00:37:00twenty--it’s going to give you about twenty-five years of good production, the panels are going to be still at eighty percent of their rated power output at year twenty-five. So, like you got twenty-five years. So, what you're choosing to do when you buy a solar installation, it's like you're choosing to essentially buy--pay for your twenty--twenty-five years of electricity, your power plant on your roof. That's going to make you your electricity for the next 25 years. Um, even up to 2020 when I was selling installations that paid for itself in ten to fifteen. So, you're basically choosing to pay half price on a thing that like you're gonna, if you don't buy this thing--if you don't put it in that--like you're going to be paying your utility bill for that twenty-five years. You're gonna--I can tell you--I can estimate how much you're going to spend in utility bills for the next twenty-five years. You don't want to see that number--(Cagle laughs)--it's a high number.

CAGLE: No, that sounds terrifying--(laughs)--

SMITH: --um, but that's what people, people are like, oh, solar is so expensive. I'm like, it's half of what you would, what you're going to pay in utility bills over the next twenty-five years. And you 00:38:00can do it yourself or not do it. You could have your own power plant.

CAGLE: Right.

SMITH: So, that's--yeah, that's what's so radical about it. But it's also why utility companies, especially in regulated for profit markets, they don't want that to happen--(Cagle laughs).

CAGLE: Because that's that, that half that you're not paying is--well, they perceive it as coming out of their pockets.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: Yeah. Okay, yeah. So, then around, this was like 2015, 2016 is when they started, the utility companies, started getting really serious in Kentucky about trying to change this, right?

SMITH: Yeah, and I forget the numbers of bills, um, and how many years, because gosh, it, it, it slogged on, um--

CAGLE: --yeah.

SMITH: I think the, the first year they really tried to ram something through at the last minute. And if I remember correctly, it was kind of surprising that it didn't work.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: Um, but it was 00:39:00, um, yeah, we organized as quickly as we could, especially with the, we basically reached out to all the people, all our customers and potential folks that were in like, like, hey, like call your legislators, all these different things. They wanted to open the door for utility companies that could afford it to be able to do rate cases to determine the rate that people would pay for solar. They--and they were trying to suggest a rate as well, which is not appropriate--

CAGLE: --Uh-huh [affirmative]--

SMITH: --for them to do, but--

CAGLE: --and that would be a fixed rate over that time period, right? So--

SMITH: --fixed rate--

CAGLE: --it wouldn't go up with the--

SMITH: --exactly.

CAGLE: Right.

SMITH: Yeah. So, it's, it's just atrocious math and economic--just, they completely ignore really how you should put a value on solar, but our whole economy and society is doing that. So, like, whatever--hard to blame them, but yeah. So they tried to ram this through at the end and this was really where 00:40:00--I, I had never been a super politically active person. Um, I am very privileged, I didn't have to be. And a lot of it was like, you know, I had this vision and I was like, it's like house of cards. It's all--it's big corpos paying politicians and getting all this stuff set up. I'm like, but surely it's not like actually like that. But I watched them try to ram this bill through and I--like saw who was introducing it. I don't, I don't remember slash I'm not going to throw names out there. Um, I--

CAGLE: --It's a matter of public record if people want to know. You can--

SMITH: --yeah--

CAGLE: --go Google it--(laughs).

SMITH: Yeah, it's, it was not hard, but I was like, okay, I like go to this committee hearing about this bill. And first of all, the person who's talking about it has no clue what they're saying. They don't know the first thing about utilities or rates or solar. They just--they had no clue what they were saying. It was clear they're reading a thing that was not theirs--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

SMITH: --but they were the champion of it, right? 00:41:00So, um, they bring it up and I'm like, okay, you know, red flag, I'm going to go back to the office. I'm going to start Googling these people and it's public record, right? Who gives them money and all this stuff. And within about like 15 minutes I can be like, oh, everybody on this committee has a lot of coal money in their pockets.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: Every single one of them.

CAGLE: Yeah and coal is powering the utilities.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: Yeah and I was like, man, I, I was jaded about this stuff because I thought that's how it worked. I didn't think it was like really how it worked. And then I walked into my state government and was like, oh no--(Cagle laughs)--that's like actually really how it works. This person has no clue what they're doing. They're taking orders from whoever's paying their bills--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

SMITH: --and yeah, hard to blame them, but it's messed up.

CAGLE: Was this your first time attending a legislative committee--

SMITH: --yes--

CAGLE: --meeting? Wow. That is like--there are these moments in life where you just, you know, 00:42:00eye opening and it sounds like one of those.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: It was really hard. I had--you know, I got into solar and I was like, climate change is simple. We got to put solar panels everywhere, it's not that hard. I'm an engineer at the time, young engineer. I'm like, we're just going to put solar panels everywhere. It's--and so then I started like, I was like, okay, we got to figure out about the grid and I read a couple of books about like the utility. There's this one called Smart Power that was just like super eye opening. It did at least give me an idea of how complex--I'm struggling between using the word complex or complicated, but I'll say complex, really putting--really making the energy transition we need to make would be. And I learned a bit about utility markets and all this kind of stuff. And then, and then got a hands on case study and like the policy side of it and how these things went down and how it was all tied together. And I was like, a phrase I heard you say recently that I keep finding myself saying, like, oh boy, 00:43:00 howdy--

CAGLE: --oh boy, howdy--(laughs).

SMITH: It was, it was, uh, eye opening.

CAGLE: Yeah. So, were you guys, you said, you know, you mobilize to turn out--to contact clients and ask them to, you know, um, speak out as citizens. Were you coordinating with other solar installers? I know KFTC, the Kentuckians for the Commonwealth had, like I, I called my Congress--oh, what is--I can't remember who says it, but somebody calls them Congress critters--(Smith laughs). I called my Congress critters to--in response to, you know, an email from KFTC on this. So were you all coordinating?

SMITH: Yeah, so, um, this was really our first effort at that, um, as a company. And, um, I guess a little bit of the landscape in Kentucky, there aren't a lot of installers here. There's three that I can think of that have been around for any significant 00:44:00amount of time and have, have done a substantial amount and like actually have like a, a, a business and like a solid place and all that--

CAGLE: --I’m sure, right now that's Solar Energy Solutions and--

SMITH: --I think of Wilderness Trace--

CAGLE: --Uh-huh [affirmative]--

SMITH: --out of Danville. Uh, God love them, I think of Synergy--(laughs)--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --and that's, that’s pretty much--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

SMITH: --that's pretty much it. So yeah, we were coordinating with folks. We were coordinating, uh, uh, with the typical advocacy activist groups as well. Um, and I don't know, there must have been flavours of this in year one, because year two changed pretty dramatically.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: But, um, Matt Partymiller and Steve Ricketts, who in my mind are like super unsung heroes, especially Matt, of just like, in my mind, that dude is a godfather of solar in this state. I mean, that dude has like done the 00:45:00thing. But they, I think had some sort of, uh, consulting that first time around, uh, from like--in like, I don't know exactly the details, but some sort of guide to--they were recommended to not get too tightly engaged with KFTCs, the advocacy organizations and things. Because there's this idea, right, of like, oh, business--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --and then like, advocacy. And there was this idea that like, if the business--if those parties were like in bed together, then there's no--you can't take them seriously. Like you can't take the business people like seriously. Um, so, yeah, that was kind of a thing going on. But yeah, it was some... Yeah, I mean, we were a small solar installing company, like we probably had fifteen people at the time. And every, all 00:46:00office personnel for however long that first battle went on, it was relatively quick, was pretty much focused on being a grassroots organize--

CAGLE: --Uh-huh [affirmative]--

SMITH: --like we were calling and doing all this organizing stuff--

CAGLE: --crash course--

SMITH: --all of a sudden, like, without--yeah--(laughs)--any real idea what we were doing.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: But I don't know how, but it didn't go through the first, the first year.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: And the second year was a completely different battle the second time around. And I don't know if it was like consecutive years or if there's a gap in between or what.

CAGLE: I feel like it was 2015 and 2017 maybe, is what's happening--

SMITH: --yeah--

CAGLE: -in my head.

SMITH: --yeah, that sounds right to me.

CAGLE: So, what happened the second time around?

SMITH: I'm pretty sure the second time around, which I could have my timeline wrong, but I'm pretty sure the second time around was when, um, the Kentucky Solar Industries Association was formed. And, um, there was at least one lobbyist, one, uh, I don't even know, lobbyist, political professional. I don't really know exactly that was--

CAGLE: --probably lobbyist. I feel like it gets used as a sort 00:47:00of like, um, dismissive term--

SMITH: --yeah--

CAGLE: --but it is technically, it's a job title

SMITH: --yeah--

CAGLE: You know, you could be a registered lobbyist.

SMITH: Yeah. So, we at least had somebody like formally in the solar industries corner, um, from a--as the Kentucky Solar Industries Association who--I designed their logo, no big deal--

CAGLE: --you did not--

SMITH: --on Microsoft Word or Microsoft Paint, not even Canva, uh--

CAGLE: --it's a nice little, the one with the little rectangles, is it?

SMITH: Oh, I don't know. They tried to change it after I left. But, the OG one was--I was a graphic designer.

CAGLE: Oh yeah. Uh-huh [affirmative].

SMITH: Yeah. Which was really like, yeah, we're organizing this industries association. Can you give us a logo? It's like, I can use Microsoft Paint.

CAGLE: It--I was trying to remember the one. Yeah, this is the one I was thinking of. Sorry, not rectangles, triangles?

SMITH: No.

CAGLE: No, okay.

SMITH: So, so, that's the newest one. That's the professionally designed one--

CAGLE: --for the record, I just showed 00:48:00Alex a logo on my, on my laptop.

SMITH: --that’s the one--

CAGLE: --so, that's the new one?

SMITH: That's the new, new one. I had like an outline of the state that had a sun coming over it, which is still used in some places--

CAGLE: --yes, okay, I’ve definitely seen it--

SMITH: --I've seen it recently and I was like, what?

CAGLE: I was thinking of something else then, but, um, I mean, love a state outline--(Smith laughs). It’s--you know what? Kentuckians love a state outline, we do--(laughs)--

SMITH: --yeah, yeah. Whole businesses have been built around just putting it on a t-shirt.

CAGLE: Exactly. I mean, quite literally.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: I almost wore one of those today, actually.

SMITH: Y'all.

CAGLE: Yeah, um--

SMITH: --y'all or bourbon. One of those--

CAGLE: --yes, exactly. Yeah, yesterday I had my strong like bourbon, um, which actually does it say strong like Kentucky bourbon? I think, yeah, that makes more sense--T-shirt on. Okay, so, then, so you have a lobbyist. How--as this carried on, you know, or sort of cropped back up, I guess, rather? Like was this affecting your 00:49:00work? Like you're having to shift how you're having conversations with potential clients?

SMITH: One-hundred percent--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --one-hundred percent--

CAGLE: --how was that?

SMITH: So, well, it affected the organization big time because Steve and Matt were like about it. I mean, they're really well established at that point as an installer here and getting net metering change is a big deal. It's a big deal. Pretty much the economics of selling installations is based on net metering. Um, so, so it's a huge deal to a solar installer and the solar industry, um, in the state. So, they were like--Matt and Steve were all hands on deck. Thankfully they were able to--because they were so all hands on deck, active and going to Frankfort so regularly, it took that off of the rest of the staff--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --um, which there was never a big office. I mean, when I said staff, I mean, it was like two or three people tops. Um, so, but they, they really shouldered a lot of that the second go around. Um, 00:50:00but it was enough and at the time--in hindsight, I'm like, I, I was so angry, so frustrated about a lot of this. And I think at the time I'm, you know, late twenties, I'm starting to--I'm like, I want to think about like not settling down, but being like, I want to have like an established solid career. I don't want to be in a space where I'm like, oh, is, is some politician going to come through and all of a sudden--cause I, I had actually transitioned, I was doing sales at that point. So, selling installations was like how I put food on the table. And like, it was going to--when net metering changes, it's a much harder sell. It's not impossible, but it's, it's really hard to sell a residential solar with, with the policy that they were trying to change it to. Because even when I worked with folks from the sales perspective, even people who were environmentally inclined, still wanted to see the numbers, still wanted to see this investment make sense in 00:51:00some way. So, you know, the payback changed dramatically, um, and I like knew the writing was on the wall and I was like, oh, I don't want like--I was like so nervous. I was just like anxious and nervous about it. I was like, I couldn't imagine what either fighting this battle every other year or like, okay, they win. Then what?

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: Um, so, yeah, it was just so--there was so much uncertainty there and right. There's a lot of uncertainty in life and everything, but I was at a stage where I was like, I had really started to think about like wanting to do something. I was like, okay, this is going to be like more stable and just like not going to have to fight this battle all the time. So it made sales, I knew when this bill changed past, which it was seemed inevitable that it was going to pass in some format, some point, whether it was that year, the following year or whatever, it was going to change at some point. There was just, I mean, it was clear that there were utility companies 00:52:00were just pouring a ton of money into it. Um, so they wanted to have a change. So, that was going to happen at some point and I knew that those, the sales conversations and being a salesperson in Kentucky was going to be really hard to do once that happened.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: Not impossible, um, but really hard to do.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Were you guys doing any off-grid work or it just--

SMITH: --we had started--

CAGLE: --because that would change that calculus, right?

SMITH: Yes and no. Um, so, we had started doing battery-based systems. Um, we had always done--we had done a lot of traditional true off-grid and then as products like the Tesla Powerwall and, and there were others, but really that was like the true, like, market leader. Um, as products like that came to market, we would start talking about installing that for folks, but it about doubles the price of the average installation. So, um, 00:53:00yeah, the numbers still, even with the Powerwall at the time, which prices on batteries have come down and will continue to come down, but it's still not enough. Um, I don't know if it's helpful to explain, but yeah, when you have the battery there, you can, uh, especially a system like the Powerwall that has a lot of smart electronics, a computer in it, that's--you're basically choosing to sink your excess into your own battery. So, like literally the Powerwall will be like, what's the forecast tomorrow? How much electricity do you think, or, or energy do you think I'll generate? It will over the night drain that much and then you'll self-consume. So, you'll like your solar--excess solar would go to your battery instead of going back to the grid. So, it's a way for you to keep your solar because the utility companies have wrecked the incentive of giving it back--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

SMITH: --basically to your neighbour, which ideally there'd be entirely different ways of going about it.

CAGLE: Right 00:54:00. Yeah. I mean, I remember, um, this is a bit of a side note, but I was involved with the, um, Patel School of Global Sustainability at USF South Florida when I was doing my PhD and there were folks there working on, um, basically the idea of like modular utilities, not just energy, but, you know, water and, uh, both like, you know, water in the sewage treatment side, you know, water quality side, all of that. And the idea of like, could we put a solar array up for neighbourhood, right?

SMITH: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

CAGLE: Where again, it's the same thing where it's like depending on consumption levels, we're sort of just passing energy around as needed. Um, so what has ended up--what's the situation now in Kentucky?

SMITH: Oh gosh. Um, I might get the specifics wrong, um, but--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Or what was it, I guess when you left solar?

SMITH: Yeah. So, uh, when I had left, they had--so 00:55:00there was a transition period where they essentially had passed the bill that opened the door for utility companies to do rate cases--to change the rate. That takes time and money, so not all the utility companies were like knocking at--knocking down the door, but the big ones were knocking down the door to get their rate case done. So, there was still a period of time where there were like deadlines, which frankly made selling super easy because it was basically like if you want to lock in grandfathered net metering, like as it currently stands, you need to do it by a certain date.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: So, that was, yeah, that was a whole thing. But, um, once utility companies were able to do their rate cases, they have decided to pretty much the same thing from what I've seen, um, but they're doing a locked in rate. It's not as low as the utilities had pushed for. I think they had pushed for the avoided cost rate, which is around three cents a kilowatt hour. I think it ended up--I think it's at seven and a half cents a kilowatt hour, 00:56:00which the average retail rate is around ten or eleven cents, um, going up--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --but, um, yeah, it's just weird, right? Like they're--yeah, it’s--they're terrible at math--(Cagle laughs). Maybe they're at--well maybe they’re really good at it, but--

CAGLE: --yeah. Good at it in a terrible way.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: Are--so, the rate cases--so the utilities, are they negotiating? Well, first of all, the rate cases, this is working with the Public Service Commission, right?

SMITH: Yes.

CAGLE: The PSC. And then are they all negotiating individually or is there like a rate that will apply industry wide or?

SMITH: I--my understanding of it, which could definitely be wrong, I haven't looked into the specifics of this too much, but, um, is--with the first cases, there was basically a precedent set and they're going to use that going forward for the other, for the other cases. So, the other--additional cases as the smaller utilities that don't have huge lobbying budgets will do 00:57:00their rate cases throughout the state over the next--I think they're still ongoing. Um, though, they won't be as expensive or take as long because they'll use this previous one--

CAGLE: --right--

SMITH: --as precedent, which I think that does technically open the door where it's like they are looking at it over and over again. So, maybe there's opportunities to like interject--

CAGLE: --increase or--

SMITH: --and actually get them to look at value of solar, but, um, then you got to put a, you know, price on a living planet and all that kind of stuff, so--

CAGLE: Yeah, which, yeah, actually, okay, so this is a question I wanted to ask you about, and maybe this is a good point to do it. Um, so--and, and actually, no, I'm going to hold this question. This is a question about that sort of like bringing that business sensibility to the climate conversation. But I'm going to hold that--

SMITH: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

CAGLE: --until after you talk a little bit about your work with Schneider, because I think that'll inform it too--(Smith laughs).

SMITH: --yeah.

CAGLE: Okay, so you leave Solar Energy Solutions in--

SMITH: --2020.

CAGLE: 2020.

SMITH: February 00:58:00the--February 28. I started at Schneider--

CAGLE: --oh my god--

SMITH: --March 2, 2020--(Cagle laughs).

CAGLE: What happened in March 2020, Alex Smith?

SMITH: Uh, I think there was a genetically engineered bat from China--(Cagle laughs)--that got out and ate somebody's face or something and then--

CAGLE: --yeah, no, that's Florida.

SMITH: Yeah, oh, right, right--(Cagle laughs).

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: Sorry. Uh, but no, it was the world shut down.

CAGLE: Yeah, yeah. Global pandemic.

SMITH: Yep.

CAGLE: Definitely not caused by--(Smith laughs)--unintentionally released genetically [?? WORDS UNCLEAR]--

SMITH: --fake news.

CAGLE: Fake news. Yeah, I--uh, yeah--

SMITH: --what a time.

CAGLE: So, um, yeah, in Kentucky specifically shut down. I say shut down, I mean things--places started closing, schools started--

SMITH: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

CAGLE: --um, closing around, um, March 20--March 18. So, you would have been in your new job for--

SMITH: --two weeks.

CAGLE: Two weeks.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: Oh boy, okay--

SMITH: --I was there for a week. My second week I got the flu, I had a really bad 00:59:00cough and a really high fever--

CAGLE: --oh no--

SMITH: --I went into the doctor and they wouldn't test me for the COVID. So, they did give me a flu test and I passed the flu test. But so--

CAGLE: --passed as in didn't have flu?

SMITH: No, it passes and I had the flu.

CAGLE: Oh, you had the flu--(Smith laughs)--oh, okay, okay.

SMITH: Yeah. So, I don't, I don’t know if I for sure had COVID necessarily, but I had all the symptoms of COVID that second week. And then when I got back on that Monday, they were like, oh, we're actually going home.

CAGLE: Okay.

SMITH: Get your laptop and go home, and I said okay (??)--

CAGLE: --yeah, because COVID was in Kentucky by that point. Our first case--our first known case was, I think, the first week of March in Cynthiana. But, you know, of course there's no telling how many undiagnosed cases were already floating around.

SMITH: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

CAGLE: Yeah, ew, yeah. Okay, how did you find Schneider to work with them? I had a friend of a neighbour or no, no, no, not friend of a neighbour. I had a--it was a neighbour’s daughter. I had actually heard, worked there years prior 01:00:00and I actually talked to my co-worker at SES it because I was like, oh, this seems like an interesting--he wanted to do more. Uh, he was going to masters in sustainability--like broader sustainability. And I was like, oh, this could be interesting, um, and I didn't know of any other like sustainability, like companies or like things, but, oh, I had had this draw through--throughout my time with solar that I was like, I knew I had like learned enough to know that solar wasn't just it. And I was really interested in this more like systems thinking approach, like broader, like integrated, like sustainability approaches and things like that. And so I'd been hungry for that for a while and then I was like, okay, I'll check if Schneider has anything. And they had this role, solutions architect, and that like just seemed like the right fit and I was really curious about that. I started interviewing for it in like November of 2019, and then actually got the job in, um, February of 2020.

CAGLE: What is a solutions architect?

SMITH: Yeah. So, it is, it's actually a software 01:01:00term, primarily. It, it's usually--it's just somebody who is aware of the organizations like, uh, offering--product offerings and things like that, and is usually like a semi technical person that is able to talk to clients. So, it's kind of like a sales engineer and like manufacturing or different things like that, but more on like the tech side of it. So, my role was to really understand our sustainability services. So, Schneider had a, a few different like buckets of services. You know, they had data services, they had supply, they're an energy procurement company. So, I technically worked for Summit Energy, which was bought by Schneider in like 2014 or something like that, or maybe earlier 2012. But their main business was this energy procurement, um, you know, buying electricity contracts or, you know, doing electricity contracts for large corporations. And then they kind of built a software platform to support in that with the data collection and then they added some sustainability 01:02:00services on top of that. Uh, this was all Summit and then Schneider, they caught the eye of Schneider and Schneider bought them. So--but I was responsible for knowing the sustainability services inside and out and sit, joining--I joined salespeople on conversations to talk about the sustainability services, listen to the client's needs and all that. And then just kind of be like, this is what I think you're like sustainability program needs. So, it was actually a lot closer to like business consulting and what I originally did out of school, the software consulting stuff than any of the solar work I'd been doing.

CAGLE: Interesting. Did you have any sense that you were going to become someone who was, you know, had such a business orientation or like expertise in business? I was fully expecting when I looked up your educational background to see at least like a minor, if not a double major in business.

SMITH: Yeah. Yes and no. I think 01:03:00I'd been really intrigued by like business and entrepreneurship for a long time. I took some courses in college on it, but not enough to like minor or anything in it. I always knew that--yeah, if I was going to do engineering--like I,

I really enjoy the, the soft skills, but with a technical background like that's--I love to talk about like, yeah, more technical or harder to understand things, but like talk about it with people or figure out the business side of it. Um, so I don't know if I would have been able to verbalize it that way before, but it doesn't surprise me. I like, I technically got an MBA along the way, like this online MBA program that is like technically accredited. I don't usually like--(both laughs)--like really, I'm not like, oh yeah, I have an MBA.

CAGLE: Uh-huh [affirmative].

SMITH: Because it was like, yeah, it was, it's like an experimental type program--

CAGLE: uh-huh [affirmative]--

SMITH: --but I've always been interested in that kind of stuff. But--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --I wouldn't have necessarily said it that way, but I'm not surprised.

CAGLE: Yeah. No, that makes 01:04:00sense. Um, so what were some of the sustainability solutions that you were sort of had in that bucket?

SMITH: Yeah, um, so really what our team did was able to, they, they were, you know, they were a consultant. They were a consultant that was able to help people, um, prop up or, you know, flush out their, their sustainability programs within these large, you know, primarily fortune 500 companies. So, we really approached it programmatically and kind of went from like a--you know, the first step is really getting your emissions data in place. The next step is really reporting on that. So, in the corporate sustainability space, there's an alphabet soup of reporting, um, I guess, frameworks and it's really just ways for you to voluntarily disclose, which I can't wait till the government actually makes people, but apparently they get in like super sued about like--there's a bunch of people 01:05:00that are not wanting to have to publicly disclose their emissions. I don't know why. Um, but yeah. So anyways, reporting on their environmental data and practices and governance and everything. This is, this is really the whole like ESG [3] and all this ESG investing and stuff. This is all the stuff that supports that--

CAGLE: --what is ESG?

SMITH: ESG is environmental, social and governance. Um, it used to be more commonly referred to as sustainability or corporate social responsibility, CSR.

CAGLE: That’s what I--CSR is what I'm familiar with.

SMITH: So, it's changed over the years. Um, but yeah, ESG is what the past couple of probably three-ish years has been the primary thing it's talked about. Um, but then the, the third pillar, the really big piece, and this is what was all the rage, you know, so hot right now, um, it was climate targets, um, net zero science-based targets initiative, the different frameworks to help people 01:06:00set climate targets that are aligned with the Paris Agreement. So, it's like, you have to be reporting on your emissions to be able to like to do a climate target. So, they're just kind of these different like things that--a sustainability manager out of out of a fortune 500 company with the appropriate resources and education could do some of this stuff. But, often they were under resourced and, you know, didn't have the resources to have full time staff doing it. So, you know, it's usually their person--the clients we worked with, their person was, you know, the talking head and maybe integrating some of this stuff. But they, our team basically did a lot of the work for them. And they were able to like, they are the ones that took that work into the boardroom.

CAGLE: Right.

SMITH: And a lot of this was like, it was at high levels in organizations. I mean, it was often executive level conversations, I mean, stuff that was really important to these businesses, um, yeah.

CAGLE: Yeah. How did you feel about that 01:07:00 work?

SMITH: I was excited for a little while. Um, I--(laughs)--actually reached out to somebody on LinkedIn the other day, it was a buddy I had there, who was--so I sat between the sales and operations team, um, in kind of this weird limbo. But this is a buddy on the operations team and I was just like, I--that place sent me down a rabbit hole that I have to look back at and wonder if that was how good that was for me.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: Um, yeah. Learning the depths of--I guess I thought, I thought day in and day out about how these businesses actually worked, what they made, what they did. And admissions is actually a great way to--absolutely fantastic way to do that. I, I literally remember the first day on that job, I was super excited because I was like, oh, this person--we're just using this to--it sounds like business consulting. ‘Cause I'm like, oh, you're really just figuring out what they do--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

SMITH: --because that's really how you can figure out what 01:08:00their--how to, how to set up their program and how to figure out where their admissions are coming from and all this stuff. And there's no way of really skirting around it either. ‘Cause it's like, you got to really get down to know, what do you guys actually do? Which you'd be surprised, a lot of those companies, a lot of people don't necessarily know all they do--

CAGLE: --Uh-huh [affirmative]--

SMITH: --which is mind boggling to me. But you're able to figure it out eventually. But yeah, I was like really thinking about that day. Because any client convo I went into, I'd like do that research beforehand and, you know, I'm getting the understanding of, of emissions and especially scope three and, um, climate targets and the Paris agreement and all this kind of stuff. And I'm like, it just became clear at some point, I'm like, we have an absurdly far way to go. And like, more so than I ever thought. And all these--everybody I was talking to wanted a magic--they wanted a magical way to do it. They wanted business 01:09:00as usual with solar panels--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

SMITH: --business as usual with carbon credits.

CAGLE: Right.

SMITH: And I'm an engineer. I'm looking at it--that stuff you make, you can't make it. I, I know how solar works. I know how much--you can't manufacture a lot of stuff with solar. You just can't.

CAGLE: Because of the amount of energy required? Or--

SMITH: --Yeah, yeah. Well, so--

CAGLE: --or like energy intensity, I guess.

SMITH: Yeah, energy in--yeah. You get--yeah, you get into a power intensity, a lot of stuff needs high heat, especially plastics and things like that. And you just can't, they're, they're, they're coming out there. I say can't, there's been some, some developments in different like, arc reactors, you know, it's--different stuff that's able to create high heat from electricity, ultimately. But yeah, you get into this power and energy conversation where like, solar is fantastic. We're talking about PV [4] so not solar thermal. So, solar electric is fantastic at creating 01:10:00energy, it's going to create a little bit of juice all day, as long as the sun's shining, even on a cloudy day. Um, and that's fantastic. It is not--you do not want to run a motor directly off that. And that's where batteries are absolutely incredible, as it starts to give you this way to collect it and then regulate it, um, which is incredible. But, um, yeah, I just was thinking, like, you know, they wanted this business as usual stuff. And I'm like, I see two paths to actual net zero for you, you stop making the stuff that you're making, or you figure out how to make it out of plants, or something with just electricity, which is it's, it’s not to say that they can't do that. But I'm like, putting a bunch of solar panels on this place is not, it's not gonna--no amount of solar panels is like really gonna let you get there. Um, so I just, yeah, I was having to like, face that every day. Um, and yeah, at some point, it just became, yeah, really clear that, yeah, this was really complex. It was really 01:11:00complex in a way that I thought it was complicated, and figure-out-able, and like, solvable. I think I had this, this framework in my mind for the longest time as an engineer, that this was just a problem that we could solve, we would get to zero and climate change--poof, done, we've won, you know, crisis averted. Um, and I just had to really face a lot of different things as I like--as my understanding of it, like developed over the years of like, really having to really think about it in these different ways, and it just kind of shifted and shifted. Um, and just the--yeah, the complexity that's really there, because the first shift was like, okay, solar panels everywhere, but I was like, oh, we got to get people to buy them. And--

CAGLE: --right--

SMITH: --that's where like, the business thing came in--

CAGLE: --right--

SMITH: --and I was like, oh, there's the policy side. I'm like, okay, this is it's, it's complicated, but I'm like, still, it's like a problem we can solve and climate change will just be done. We'll just, we'll just do it. We'll win the war. Um, 01:12:00and yeah, I just I think as I, as I did the work with Schneider, um, yeah, it really continued to become evident to me that this wasn't, this wasn't a problem to just solve, um, in the same way that I thought it was.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: And that continues to change, you know, the way I think about it continues like evolve and change, just kind of like where I am, I guess, more currently with it. But the day that really got me at Schneider, I had a ton of dissonance because I had like started to think about this thing this way. But it was clear that nobody really wanted to talk about it. So, I'm talking to people about climate change every day, climate targets, climate change. And I'm like, looks pretty grim. I don't know if you guys look at it when--I don't know if you're looking at what I'm--I don't know if when I say climate change, we're talking about the same thing. Because they're looking at it like, well, I just need you to sell me some strategy that gets us to zero. 01:13:00I think there's an elephant in the room here that we're not really talking about, which it did kind of start entering the picture, we started doing--there was a an offering around climate risk, um, which was looking at your portfolio, and using like models to be like which of your factories or data centers or whatever were at risk due to sea level rise or heat or whatever--you should move--(laughs).

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: And in, in who has bought a lot of those who mostly buys that software is insurance companies and they're looking at and going, well, we can't be there anymore--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --because it's too expensive. Um, but that's--yeah, again. So anyways, it just like--I don't remember where exactly I was going with that, but--

CAGLE: --the day--you said you had a day.

SMITH: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So a chain of gas stations came in. Um, um, yeah, convenience stores, which granted--

CAGLE: --for the record, I just put my head in my hands.

SMITH: Yeah and they wanted to talk to me about sustainability. And I'd been 01:14:00frustrated before because we had, we had an oil and gas sector. You know, that was and it, it continued, it continued to have to be in conversations where the, the people in charge were, uh, like, man, we should really unlock the oil and gas sector. It's like, they just really don't get it. They really don't get it. Um, so yeah, this gas station wanted to come in and talk to me about sustainability and what they could do and how they could be more sustainable. And I, I don't know how I didn't scream at them. Just like you have to you have to stop. Your business can't exist anymore. Or you could be, you guys can be electric car charging stations.

CAGLE: Uh-huh [affirmative].

SMITH: Um, but you can't--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --you can't sell your product anymore. And as an engineer, that's the only solution I could come up with. And I, I know that's not like a solution I personally came up with. But it's like the only thing that like, makes sense to me. And these people like are having these conversations and don't seem--they're like, no, we're gonna be around in thirty-five, forty years, whatever, still selling gasoline. And I'm like, we needed to stop selling your stuff and 01:15:00burning your stuff thirty years ago. Um, but we're using we're talking we're using--talk--saying climate change, talking about climate stuff, but not really talking about it. So--

CAGLE: --dissonance seems like the right word. That's what you said.

SMITH: Dissonance?

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: Yeah. Mary helped me with that.

CAGLE: Oh, nice.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: Mary Arthur, we have an interview with her for the collection, too. So, I mean it makes sense why you would want to leave--

SMITH: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

CAGLE: --and move to a space where maybe you could resolve some of that dissonance. Is that why you why you decided to leave and do something else?

SMITH: Oh, I quit because my mental health was in such a bad place.

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: I couldn't. I couldn't keep doing what I was doing. I couldn't keep doing what I was doing.

CAGLE: Wild.

SMITH: Yeah, I just quit. I didn't have a plan. Um, I just quit.

CAGLE: You know, it's--I think that's a really important story because there's these conversations right about individual versus structural change 01:16:00 --

SMITH: --yeah.

CAGLE: And like, um, the, uh, this is something that I'm like constantly sort of exposed to is that conversation--and it's true that quote unquote individual change right what we each personally use fuel wise or energy wise or whatever is numerically not enough to--

SMITH: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

CAGLE: --to change. And so often I think the response is okay, well, we need to get into the systems right and we need to, we need to be part of the structure so we can make structural change.

SMITH: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

CAGLE: But then you're in the structure and the structure is resistant to change and like how do you--I don't know it just really reveals how wicked this problem is.

SMITH: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

CAGLE: Yeah, so quitting was the right call.

SMITH: Yeah, yeah. So I quit. Before I quit, I actually did I did a fantastic program as, um--I did a 01:17:00ten step--well, I think maybe there's a twelve step program, it was through the good grief network. And it was the first time--and this was before I had started doing any personal therapy or anything like that in, in super directly--or maybe around the same time. Actually no, it was around it was almost exactly the same time. Um, but yeah, it was an online cohort, ten--I think it was ten weeks, a different step each week. And it was really around processing climate grief--climate emotions. And I had not learned a lot of that, personally. And that's why it was also in therapy at the same time. But doing those two things at the same time, really helped me move through a lot of that. And it wasn't the program wasn't at all focused on necessarily like, hey, do you think this is going to lead to like, like, are you a tumor? Like, do you think this is going to be like, we're gonna like collapse or like--it was really just like a group to talk about these, um, stages of like moving 01:18:00through grief, but applied specifically to grief around--they would say just climate grief, but also just like environmental, like there's right, there's the--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --climate change isn't the only--the emissions is far from the only problem that we're--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --uh, experiencing. And--although it is the only one that really gets headlines.

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: And even then not enough. But--

CAGLE: --yeah. And it's just harder and harder these days to pull apart. Right? Like, we've been experiencing biodiversity loss for a long time, through like, kind of direct impacts of pollution and whatnot. But those things are sort of inextricable from the actions that also cause climate change. And so it's like, yeah. I don't know if you read, Jonathan Franzen had, um, an essay in, I want to say The Atlantic a couple years ago about how it's not fair to the birds that we talk about climate change all the time, because the birds are in trouble. And it was like, both and Jonathan, both and--(laughs).

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: Like we need to be 01:19:00doing both.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: Yeah. So, then I didn't know about that, I’m, I'm really grateful to know about that network. How did you find out about them?

SMITH: I think I found them on Twitter.

CAGLE: Oh, nice. Yeah.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: Yeah, R.I.P.--

SMITH: --yeah, yeah.

CAGLE: Yeah. And then so you're--you've quit, you're doing what you need to do to take care of your health. And then start looking around for something else to do or?

SMITH: Yeah, I hadn't even actively looked--I had actually tried a couple different things. I was looking at doing like freelance videography. And I, I continue to go back and forth on, is working in this stuff full time--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --the right thing for me? I go back and forth on that. And I hadn't even really made up my mind yet, uh, on that. But, I was trying things that weren't directly related to it to see if I could get some traction for myself. Um, and just moving through this stuff. I, I mean, it took months, it was two or three 01:20:00months. And then eventually I did see--I just saw an opportunity that was like, okay, this seems of interest and I applied and, and got the role it was, it's environmentally related, but not, um, directly climate related, which is also--I'm still, I'm still facing the same challenges I was facing before. Which yeah--

CAGLE: --yeah, this is the outreach specialist role--

SMITH: --yep--

CAGLE: --with Bluegrass Green Source.

SMITH: Yep.

CAGLE: Yeah. Do you find that, um, I mean, thinking back to the very beginning of our conversation about how Lexington is the place that you've rooted, do, do you find that having a place is helpful for these things. Right, for, for managing emotions or for feeling hope or?

SMITH: Yeah. Um, oh, man. Uh, 01:21:00yeah, I think about Rachel. When I think about this question--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --because--

CAGLE: --your partner--

SMITH: --yeah, my partner, Rachel, who yeah, that's a whole, that's a whole thing. Because to me, the place is important--I found a person--(laughs). I, I met Rachel doing, uh, environmental work--actually met her in 2015. I was doing the--we're doing a presentation to kick off the solar energy tour shortly if I--after I'd started at that--with solar energy solutions. She did the energy efficiency part of the presentation to start it and then I did the solar part--

CAGLE: --Uh-huh [affirmative]. This would have been when she was with--was--she was at mountain--

SMITH: --she was still she was relatively new at Mountain Association at that time, but she gave that presentation and then we worked in the same circles. We weren't necessarily super close. Then in--we did solarize Lexington, the OG solarize Lexington--(Cagle laughs)--un-city-supported, solarize, um, and did kind of that same presentation vibe. So, we got to know each other 01:22:00more doing that. And then, um, we hung out a little bit in 2019 as friends and then started dating in 2020.

CAGLE: Uh-huh [affirmative].

SMITH: But, um, Rachel's from Lexington, and we met doing this work in Lexington. So, like the place has been important, but really, it's been like the person to me and having a person there, um, who--yeah, who at least doesn't actively gaslight me about, um, being freaked out about something that is totally normal and understandable to be freaked out about. So--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --having a person that shares those values and is also committed to doing that type of work. Rachel does energy efficiency work. Um, she was doing it maybe more radically and now it's doing it commercially.

CAGLE: Uh-huh [affirmative].

SMITH: She--I finally convinced her to sell out like I had--(Cagle laughs)--um, and we flipped scripts a little bit--

CAGLE: --oh, it’s your fault--(laughs)--

SMITH: --yeah, um. But yeah, having a person who gets it has been--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --super impactful. And we're both committed to 01:23:00like--although it waivers, but we're committed to being in this place doing that--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --you know, holding space for that in this place.

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: Until we can't no more--(laughs).

CAGLE: Right. Yeah, exactly. It's boy, I get it, yeah. And it is, it's so easy in the day to day to, um, you know, get wrapped up in the like, I got to respond to these emails and you have this and then--at least for me, I it's like those magic seeing eye posters that were so popular in the 2000s, right? Where if you like cross your eyes, the 3D image emerges where it's like, I can go for a couple hours not paying attention and just answering emails. And then I cross my eyes and go, oh, the whole point of this is we're all in danger.

SMITH: See I have the opposite problem--

CAGLE: --where you're always in danger, yeah--

SMITH: --I have the opposite problem. I can't understand why 01:24:00the fuck I should answer an email.

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: Or go--like, why I should be doing anything other than adapting--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

SMITH: --like or I still don't know what the--or the--or why am I not doing that thing?

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: Is--I don't have a clear answer on--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --but yeah, I, I, yeah, the doctor might call it ADHD. I'm like, I'm like, what's everybody doing?

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: Why? What is a job for when I know that almost every job I could apply for right now is actively destroying the planet?

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: Is actively contributing to the problem.

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: Almost every single one.

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: Um, it's incredibly hard to find something that isn't--I've tried to find the things that are the least, um, I mean, even solar. It was a huge day for me in solar, where I--I was in the warehouse taking deliveries, um--which I it was a small company, I did a little bit everything for them 01:25:00drove the forklift, all this all this stuff. But we had received a shipment of solar panels from California. So I'm like--and it finally hit me. And this was before I'd learned about emissions and scope three emissions and all this stuff, really just how complex our global economy is and the footprint it has how energy intensive it really is. But I'm back there and I'm like, you know, I bet even if we took credit for every solar installation that we did, that we installed, even at the people that actually bought them from us couldn't take the credit, even if we took credit for that, we're still way in the hole from an energy perspective as a, as a solar company.

CAGLE: Right.

SMITH: Way in the hole, like way--

CAGLE: --from all that transportation--

SMITH: --all the transportation, manufacturing the panels, all this I'm like, oh, it like, we're, we're not even negative our self--doing the thing that's supposed to like, get us there.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: Um, so yeah, that was where the first like, inklings 01:26:00of it were for me. And then I like really, like, dove into it with Schneider and like, really, like, got a lot more language around that kind of stuff. But--

CAGLE: --yeah. Yeah, I--the only or I can come up with is like, radical civil disobedience. That's, that's the thing I think about.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: Is, um, you know, we can argue about the value of particular tactics, like maybe throwing tomato soup on artwork is not the most productive, but like, it's more productive than a lot of other things. So--(laughs).

SMITH: One-hundred percent.

CAGLE: Yeah. Yeah, so actually, speaking of, now maybe is the time to talk about climate conversations.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: Okay. So, climate conversations, what is it? And how’d you get involved?

SMITH: Oh, well, I'm like talking to part--one of the people who 01:27:00invented it. I guess--(both laugh).

CAGLE: Kind of, kind of. It's like--it's so funny that every time we tell the story of like, what happened, it like gels but in a slightly different way--(laughs).

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: Because, which I think is actually like appropriate for this. Yeah.

SMITH: But climate conversations, as I understand it is a group of Lexington residents--concerned citizens, who--

CAGLE: --I don't know if we're all citizens, actually. I haven't checked every individual--I've been trying to avoid citizen just because I, I have a lot of friends in town who are not citizens. And so--

SMITH: --that’s smart--

CAGLE: --yeah.

SMITH: That's thoughtful. Yeah, I was--

CAGLE: --at least at the university (??)--

SMITH: --leaning into alliteration. It was fun to say--

CAGLE: --I know it is. It does. It's and there's all the citizen science and like--

SMITH: --yeah--

CAGLE: --but working at the university, we have so many folks who are not--

SMITH: --yeah--

CAGLE: --US citizens that--

SMITH: --I need to think about that more.

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: Um, but, yeah, a group of, uh, concerned folks in Lexington, uh, who just hold space for 01:28:00conversation, um, about climate change. Um, there's a, a, a conversation card game that's evolved out of it. Uh, there's a monthly meetup to have those like more guided conversations with people. But, it is to me, by far the work that's resonated the most. It's people that actually are gonna just sit with it and they're not gonna rush to solutions or making claims about what's gonna happen or trying to herald what all the awesome climate action they're doing. It's just, hey, we get it. Let's just sit with it and hold space and we're here. So, it just feels like a really safe space to me and a place that I've really weirdly not found in 01:29:00places that I thought I would. Like a solar company, thought I'd find that. Um, corporate sustainability, thought I'd find that. Talking about climate change and targets all day, thought I'd find that. Even--I’m in an environmental education non-profit who does a climate summit--a sustainability summit in the spring that is about climate change. And it still doesn't seem like it really sits. And I get it. It is hard. It is like, to actually sit with this stuff is difficult--(laughs). Um, but it doesn't mean we can't, or we shouldn't, or that we--yeah.

CAGLE: Yeah. I went to the Field Museum in Chicago earlier this year, um, and they had a--I was there with my best friend who's a geologist. And so, they had a sort of like walk through the history of the earth exhibit, which if you ever can go to a 01:30:00science museum with a geologist, I highly recommend. But they had divided it by extinctions--mass extinction events. And I mean, that's already tough if you're like aware of what's happening now to think about, but you're sort of walking through and then there's these like borders where they say like, and here's this mass extinction event and what happened. And then you get the fossils and things from in between. And then as you're leaving, there's a clock on the wall with a counter underneath like this big digital clock and it shows the time. And, um, the counter shows species loss today. And you can stand there and like watch it change. And I just broke down like, yeah, I was like, this is, yeah. Because the thing is--and sometimes, you know, people quibble about like, well, you know, we don't know 01:31:00for sure if that's the number. And it's like, okay, at--most likely it's an undercount. So like, yeah, no, I fully get that.

SMITH: Yeah, the other elephant in the room as we live through an extinction level event that nobody seems to acknowledge--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

SMITH: --or want to talk about.

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: Which--yeah, I joke all the time. I tell people all the time, especially if I start to slightly open up about this. And I go, I'm great at cocktail parties--(Cagle laughs).

CAGLE: So fun.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: So fun at parties. Uh, I was talking with someone for an interview earlier this week, when we're talking about fireflies and the firefly loss that we're seeing, which is, you know, partly climate, partly light pollution, like lots of reasons. So, did Mary--Mary hooked you into the climate conversations--

SMITH: --yes--

CAGLE: --right? So how did that happen?

SMITH: So yeah, Mary, I'd actually worked with in 01:32:00solar, I helped Mary, uh, and her partner, Rob, get their solar installation. Um, I remember it, because we had a lot of good conversations around it. They asked a lot of really hard questions. They were folks who were really asking questions about like, well, does this like, actually pay--like, does it actually offset our energy? Like, like, how does the materials manufacturing stuff going? And at the time, I was super overworked, I had way more people to talk to that I could talk to. And I was like, not really engaging the question as much as I should. But it continued conversations, we had similar interest in books and, you know, kind of continued that thread. I saw her at the sustainability summit this past spring and she's like, “oh, you're back in Lexington.” And we reconnected, we got lunch, and she had mentioned the idea of climate conversations before then. But, um, we really talked about it at lunch that day. And I could not get involved as long as I was 01:33:00invited, so yeah.

CAGLE: Well, I think I mean, your involvement has been so critical, because the thing I'm remembering, I mean, there were several years of build-up of trying to think about different ways of just creating more conversations in Lexington. And Claire Hilbrecht tells the story better than I do. But that, there were these sort of various attempts that just kept defaulting into kind of standard organization mode, where it's like, there's some people in charge, and they like send emails, and you show up to the meetings and whatever. And it was like, none of us want another organization that we have to like, keep going or whatever, like, we really just want to talk to people. And what I remember is sitting at Mary's dining room table, and this was the first time I met you, was at that meeting. And I think you and I had not been there. But Claire and maybe Mary had gone to Julietta Market, the prior for Sunday, and had just kind of had a table. But then people were like, well, what, do I sign up for 01:34:00something? Do you have? And the goal was just to be like, hey, you should be thinking about climate. And then I think one of us, I might have said, like, well, why don't we just have the conversation right there, rather than saying you should have conversations, let's have a conversation. And then you knew, you had the card game idea. So, I feel like the format that has become really, really productive, in terms of creating these structured opportunities for conversation, like, really would not be what it is without your input, which is cool.

SMITH: Yeah, um, thank you. I, I was mostly immediately reminded of some games that I'd played and bought before. I'm not a board game person, but I do--I've really been about, um, personal growth and emotional growth and things like that. And I had found a couple of different games, one in particular that We’re Not Really Strangers. And it just like immediately was like, oh, Conversations, that whole game is set up to take people from being strangers to not being strangers. And 01:35:00they, they really spin it around mental health and this like, connection and opening up with people. Um, but, yeah it wasn't hard to see that we could put a climate spin on that and just use this as a framework to invite people to conversation. It seemed weird to me at first, because I'd played other--there were like other games, like TableTopics and things like that, that I had gotten and tried, but We're Not Really Strangers was the most structured one. Um, that yeah, in looking back after--looking at it after the fact, it's like, oh, it's actually based on like these different research approaches and this like stages of like, getting to know somebody and things like that. So--

CAGLE: --because that one, the We're Not Really Strangers has the kind of levels, right?

SMITH: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

CAGLE: Which is a, a tactic we adopted for the climate conversations cards where they're level one, two, three, and four to proceed through the conversation. It would be really tough. I mean, you couldn't even do the level four because it's meta.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAGLE: It'd be really tough to jump to three if you haven't done one and two.

SMITH: Yeah 01:36:00 .

CAGLE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which has worked out pretty great and now we have these like, we've actually printed them as card prototypes--

SMITH: Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

CAGLE: --and use them with people, which is cool. How have your conversations been that you've had as a result? So, what like we go to like, first Sundays at Julianna market and just sit there with chairs and--

SMITH: --yeah--

CAGLE: --cost people to come talk to us about climate. How's that been?

SMITH: It's been good. I've actually only had a couple. Um, but it's weird as I've matured or grown up in a lot of these ways and around this space in particular, it's like, it's almost weird that I'd be like, oh, it's really good. And the thing I'm talking about is somebody telling me that they're not sure they should have had their kid.

CAGLE: Yeah--(Smith laughs).

SMITH: Which is a weird thing to be like, oh, that was good--(laughs).

CAGLE: Right, right.

SMITH: But yeah, there's this honesty and vulnerability that comes out in these conversations that is 01:37:00so, so, so, so, so much closer to being real about the situation that we're in than anything I've been a part of.

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: Um, and that is incredibly empowering. Um, there's been people that want to have like informal conversations that want to talk about like solutions or why like it's really not that bad or like, or like, oh, man, it's like, it's scary and like, like that informal, but like the actual guided conversations end up opening up this level of realness--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

SMITH: --that I don't know if just culture like culturally, we've just gotten really bad at it--

CAGLE: --were we ever bad--(laughs)--

SMITH: --or we're just like, so disconnected.

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: Yeah and it's like, it's not it's--I don't blame people because like, our modern world is like, it's insanity, right? Like you have so much, so much stimulation in our environment. And so, it's like, yeah, of course, when there weren't phones 01:38:00and or cell phones in particular and the internet, like maybe you could actually sit down and have closer conversations with people or you just had more time to kill maybe--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative], yeah--

SMITH: --I don't know. But yeah, I don't--I try not to blame people. Because yeah, the modern world is like, super overstimulating in these ways. And like, also, like, I, I come at this place--like I said earlier in the conversation, I've been super privileged, like, it's incredibly privileged that I've been able to even basically spend as much time as I do thinking about climate change, because I yeah--I like to joke, I'm a six to white Catholic male--(Cagle laughs)--from an upper middle class family.

CAGLE: Uh-huh [affirmative].

SMITH: Like, I--that’s that’s--I won the zip code lottery, you know--

CAGLE: --right--

SMITH: --it's like, so I've had a lot of this space and I, you know, maybe it's commendable to say like, yeah, I could have leaned into like, I went to Vanderbilt, I could have leaned into being, you know, I've done like high level thing, I could like just go make money or whatever. And I've very much been like, no, that's not that even in solar 01:39:00, like there are ways I could have gone and just like, made money and like been in like--gone down. I really like this, all the things of it as like the big path--

CAGLE: --oh, yeah.

SMITH: It's like modernity, this like big path, even now we're just putting like a big green, you know, highlighter or neon sign over it's like sustainability--green path. And it's like, no, it's the same thing.

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: It’s the problem, you know, same thinking that got us into it. And I'm like, no, I've like, been trying to explore these small paths, it has sucked. But it's also been like incredibly enriching. So like, yeah, the conversations have been hard and challenging. Like I said, this person mostly wanted to open up to me about how they were really unsure and continue to be really unsure this--and their kid was not an infant or anything. Their kid was like, eight or nine, maybe even--

CAGLE: --Uh-huh [affirmative]--

SMITH: --and was like, I don't know if having them and bringing them into this world and going about this was the right thing to do.

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: And I worry 01:40:00about that every day. Like--

CAGLE: --yeah. It's so heavy. But also in some ways, like you said, it's--yeah, it's weird to say it's good--

SMITH: --yeah--

CAGLE: --these are the conversations, but also the there's something about being trusted. You know, when someone trusts you with that, even though--even if you were close friends, that would be so meaningful, let alone like a person that they've just started talking to. Yeah, I think the most--(laughs)--most vulnerable conversations I've had in my life were either like, after bedtime in college or like on a road trip when you don't have to look at each other--(laughs). Those are like the easiest times outside of these guided conversations. I think I have asked all of my questions. Is there anything that we should have talked about that we haven't?

SMITH: Hmm, 01:41:00I think the only thread you had mentioned answering the or question--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --like what we do, um, which is, I think really the thing I've wrestled with now for a decade--nearly a decade, I just keep being like, well, what do we do? And I was like, okay, solar. And like, I've really done it in the context of my career, which I think is really selfish, but--it in its ways, but it's also like, I'm really like--it seems to me like we have to completely change how we live. But I'm like, what is what does that even mean? Like--and I also have to still live as I do that. And so, I definitely agree with you on the civil disobedience, um, really inspired by like the just stop oil and the courage and oh my god, it's, it's, it's incredible to me that yeah, the, the courage that is shown by these people who are putting their lives on the 01:42:00line and people still aren't listening. Which is like so trippy to me that like that you'd see like--and then people will go, oh they’re just crazies or whatever. They're like--come on, like, what? Like these clear--these aren't like--these are like smart people. And it's not saying like smart people can do crazy--can't do crazy things.

CAGLE: Right.

SMITH: But it's like--and it's a, it's a lot of people. But anyway, civil disobedience and then I think the thing that the threat I've really been leaning into more is like there's that mitigation versus adaptation side of things. And it's not to say that I--I've been almost entirely on just the mitigation side. And I keep thinking of like, yeah, what does resilience look like locally and like adapting and like building systems that can like actually really sustain--can still function well. When we see the impacts that we're expecting--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

SMITH: --and really choice words like because it's 01:43:00not. Yeah, it's not an if--

CAGLE: --yeah--

SMITH: --on a lot of these things.

CAGLE: Yeah.

SMITH: Um, like people think it is. It's like, yeah, even if, even if--I will say it's if even, if we get to net zero in an intentional way--(laughs). Um, we are still going to see a lot of really hard shit--

CAGLE: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

SMITH: --between here and there. We're seeing it now. This summer, um--last summer, we've been seeing it. So, really that like adaptation side and figuring out like, how can you find ways to get water to 200,000 people? And like, the way you're talking about like distributed systems and stuff like that--

CAGLE: --yeah.

SMITH: And it's not like, no, we don't need to figure out how to finance carbon credits and create like carbon markets necessarily, and all this like still made up like financial stuff that we're doing before. It's like, no, we need to figure out how to feed people, house people, shelter--like, you know, make people have shelter, food, water.

CAGLE: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

SMITH: Um, when like, supply chains 01:44:00get disrupted, which they have already been getting disrupted--

CAGLE: --yes--

SMITH: --and will continue to get disrupted. So, it's like building these like really resilient systems. And, um, yeah, that's, that's the two, the two or I'm like, does civil disobedience and like--

CAGLE: --Uh-huh [affirmative]--

SMITH: --serious, um, adaptation, like actually thinking about what that looks like.

CAGLE: Yeah. Yeah, I will say having been doing these interviews and listening to interviews that other folks on our project team have been doing, I hadn't realized I hadn't made this connection until you just said that, but a lot of the folks that we've been talking to, that's the work they're doing. And often within particular types of systems, right? So, like food systems is a big one, um--which of course ties into general kind of agriculture systems, seed keeping systems, those sorts of things. And like, it is very--it's good to know 01:45:00that, to hear people doing this work, like in a really physical, literal, like getting food to people--

SMITH: --yeah--

CAGLE: --kind of way. And, and not just getting food to people right now, but thinking about what it's going to take to keep getting food to people, um, or keep getting water to people or keep getting--well, I always--water is so interesting to me--(Smith laughs)--in Kentucky because it's like, I mean, sometimes the problem is we have too much water--(laughs)--

SMITH: --Mm-hmm [affirmative]--

CAGLE: --right? Yeah. Yeah, okay. Well, thank you so much for your--

SMITH: --yeah--

CAGLE: --time, Alex--

SMITH: --thanks, Cagle--

CAGLE: --this has been a delight. Let me turn off the recording.

[End of interview.]