 And think, Tech Hawaii August 1st, 2022, welcome to you all on this beautiful summer day. And some of us in Hawaii are complaining, oh, it's so hot. Just talk to somebody outside of Houston every day. It's getting up into the upper 90s, high humidity, and at three o'clock in the morning, it's down all the way to 85 degrees. So Hawaii people, don't feel very sorry for yourself in the middle of summer here. And to cheer you up, we have as our guest today, Ms. Jisoo Rosala, energy consultant and sustainabilityist. And you know, a lot of us, green types, especially here in Hawaii, where we started the goal of 100% clean energy, and we look at our fits and starts towards arriving at that goal. And we think urgency, urgency, we're on the brink of a catastrophe. No, Ms. Rosala will take us into a much broader perspective, encompassing habits, civilization, tradition, culture. What in the world would that have to do with helping to solve the climate change crisis? Well, Ms. Rosala, very interesting person, by the way. She was a guest on SYNC Tech a while ago talking about Persian culture. She is originally from Persia, spent a lot of time in Asia, and has been a Hawaii resident now for many, many, many years, and again serves as an energy consultant. So welcome to the program, Ms. Rosala. And this is such an intriguing title. How in the world can we achieve resilience with culture, habits, tradition and civilization? Take it away, Ms. Rosala. Thank you, Aloha to you and your viewers. Thanks for having me on your show. Well, yeah, it's basically what we as human beings perspective sometimes forget that we are a part of the nature, which we call flow of nature. And in that perspective, we include the flow of energy. Nature and energy work hand in hand. And ultimately, it's on us to create and understand the quality of life from the human perspective for everything that is surrounding us as a flow. Just to put that in a better picture for us to look at it very purposely, I put flow of nature on top because that's the key for us. Yeah, for the environment. And we are putting ourselves as interaction, so human interaction through nature with culture and civilization on one side, the other side, habit and tradition. I also want to emphasize that with both perspectives, cultural and civilization perspective, habit and traditions, what we're all trying to do is to create livable conditions for ourselves. Sometimes we also have to consider the different life span between nature and human perspective that creates challenges for humans to find the way of life. So and how we try to influence the flow of nature. Sometimes we understand it, sometimes we disregard it. And we don't really grasp the impact of what we do and how we change the nature in a way that might be reversible for nature itself, but not necessarily for us and our ability to do the same and be more adaptable to change. So just looking at the two perspectives, culture and civilization and habit and tradition. With culture, we usually look at development, progress, urbanization and shared values and shared responsibilities that we develop for social understanding and common sense, and it helps us to interact more regardless of where we live. Where habits and traditions are usually in a comfort zone, that we feel it's a safe place for us to be. There is a lot of acceptance also within the family and it usually has a slow flow versus to the cultural civilization that has a dynamic flow. And habit and traditions, they allow us a very slow change where culture and civilization refines constantly through changes. Here I'd like to quote James Lovelock, who is a British environmental scientist and I should say who was a British environmental scientist and climate action advocate who recently passed that his idea was humans are only a part of nature. But that should give us the perspective to think bigger for both the culture and civilization part, habit and tradition and also keep in mind that both of those are rooted in us as human beings. But there is also, I also want to have the perspective to open up to not having only one side versus other side. There is a lot of options in between. And our goal should be to find ways to reach those differences to get closer to finding solutions. Sometimes looking at the topic with resilience, resiliency means that we are trying to find ways. That is what gives us the perspective to move forward. Sometimes resistance comes in between as the factor of slowing down or maybe even stopping the process of moving forward of growth. We have to also come within that understanding closer to one another. And that is my own experience living in different countries with different cultures, languages, religion that we can and we should live and learn from one another. Learning is a process that helps us to understand our environment, our differences and our similarities. So that I would like to hear bring another flow in that's a flow of change. That is where we keep in mind that a nature is constantly changing as we might not realize that, you know, going back to the lifespan that it happens in nature and the human lifespan. We disregard that we don't see that, we don't realize that, you know, but that's so important for us to always have in mind that this flow that we are creating have to not only overcome our differences, but also keeping the flow of nature in a way that we can find a good solution for progress in the right direction. I think the next slide can bring us a little bit closer to what we want to look at. The quality of life is the understanding how we can match the resilience process between the flow of nature and the human flow. So once we understand that and we can bring those values closer together, we create the sweet spot for quality of life. In this quality of life, we all can have at the same time the understanding and protecting our values and being able to improve and build a better future for humanity with nature always staying as a key for quality of life to own life. It's just all an idea that if we create a flow of nature that can overcome barriers, that we all can identify a perspective which I would also like to bring in with good intentions because I think our progress is with good intentions in order to have a better future for everyone. So that's basically I think why we should look at getting closer and overcoming the differences in order to really also thinking that there is a lot of solutions in between and stepping towards one another without being more of the resilience way than the resistance. Yeah, so that we have solutions for our problems. Thank you so much, Jisoo. You know, one image that came to mind as you were speaking is the fact that it's just in the last couple of decades that we have discovered that in forests, the trees are a certain distance apart. They have, of course, each root system and very, very often those roots, even from different species of trees are completely intertwined and they are feeding off of nutrients and even feeding off of one another and the intertwining of the roots makes them stronger, more resilient against the storms. We've only discovered this intricate, intricate root system that can go on for square miles and square miles and square miles. Is that a good analogy to kind of ties in with what you're thinking here? Yeah, it definitely is. Yes, I think that is what basically the definition of working together, sharing. Yeah, sharing what we can share and learning also from one another in order to really be able to. And I don't want to put it into the picture that we have to survive. Of course, that's what we are trying to do with all those ideas, but we also want to create the quality of life for everyone because I think as we do all our discussions, especially during the COVID time, we know how other parts of this planet even more challenges that they are facing with a minimum of solution to them. So I think that is something that we also want to be mindful of, that with what we create, that we have a broader mind of how it impacts everything and everyone. Good point. Now, that brings to mind the fact that I had the good fortune to be able to travel through poorer countries, very poor countries. And as a young man, I just stuck up my thumb and I was hitchhiking through all of these very, very remote areas and I had the good fortune of being able to stay in villages with the inhabitants and something that struck me as an American was how little human beings could get by with in terms of material goods and how happy they were in these what we would consider just abysmally impoverished circumstances as long as they had clean air, clean water, good source of food, they were happy. And that brings to mind a story. I used to be part of the running world, the distance running. And some years ago, the fastest runner in the world was from West Africa and he got brought up to New York City to participate in the New York Marathon and he was put up in a fancy hotel room and he was wind and dying on the best of foods and lionized and after a while he said, you know, all I want to do is go back to my village in West Africa and it was an image of him and his brothers just in tattered old shorts sitting on a log outside of their thatched hut. And he said he pointed to the photo and said, that's where I'm happy. So I'm thinking in terms of what how you might define the quality of life here. Yeah, well, I think this is something that we have also to understand as nostalgic as we might find it. Yeah, it doesn't help them to survive as from the other part of the technology and technical and building industry, we are changing the planet. So we want to make sure those changes comply with also understanding the culture and how still those changes can be adaptable to cultures that are maybe. We don't want to make them distinct. Yeah, they have to survive definitely. And I think they if we create an understanding that change needs to happen there as well as we have all the environmental challenges. It helps those cultures and traditions also to preserve better. Yeah, because as the environment changes, if we don't change. And that's and I think when all the indigenous cultures, if they wouldn't change, we wouldn't have our history, we wouldn't have our culture. So we also have to understand that there even if it's a slow flow change has to come from there as well. We cannot just continue being the same because the nature is changing. And if the nature changes, the survival and the preservation of what we have as culture or tradition is what will challenge our values. Yeah, that brings to mind the Charles Darwin, my favorite quote from Charles Darwin. Survival belongs not to the fittest, not to the strongest, but to the most adaptable. Yes, that's exactly what what you're talking about. And the way civilization for over much of the planet has changed is we have become more and more and more and more and more prosperous. We are in we in the first world are incredibly prosperous. We have luxuries that Queen Victoria, the most powerful woman on the face of the earth, she couldn't dream of the luxuries that even our lower income people have these days. So we've chained talk about changing civilization. And in some ways, it's going in good towards the good. In some ways, it's certainly not not going to the good. So any specific examples of a slow flow this way or a fast flow that way? Well, well, I think definitely fast flow is the I.T. Yeah, which brings a lot of changes. And that's also something that we we want to look at the science part. And we shouldn't disregard the energy usage with science, with all the devices that we are using within the technology. Yeah, so that we are not only having the phones that not the computers in a lot of other ways. Yeah, we are creating more devices that need energy. Yeah, so that is something that we also have to keep in mind as we develop so that we have to understand that we have to respect also the nature. Just consuming is not creating quality of life. We have to kind of come up with that understanding as a common sense. Yeah, and we also have to understand that what we describe as privilege. Yeah, it sometimes brings us into the mode of taking things for granted. And I think the pandemic showed us that nothing is granted. The war right now in Ukraine shows us that nothing we can take for granted. Yeah, and if we create a system that stronger countries are supporting the less stronger countries, that's what creates the problems that we have right now, taking things for granted. As nature changes, we have to understand that we also have to change and nothing is granted, basically. Yeah, so when we feel privileged, we also have to think of those who don't have this privilege and why and how we can have a better intention. Yeah. Yeah, intention towards one another are fellow human beings because Lord knows that we are splitting apart in many, many ways. And of course, you are advocating the opposite of that. And that's within the wealthy countries. And in the poor countries, us, we have so much surplus of everything to share with those poorer countries so that their quality of life is improved. And I would say improved with very minimal additional impact on the environment because in the poor countries, you they say the herders, herders of sheep, goat. Yes, horses and cattle and so forth. They have an enormous impact on the environment. Do we need to do their science, I'm sure, has solutions to this, to keep especially the poor nations living with a good quality of life without substantially making a bigger impact on the face of the earth. Yes, yeah, yeah. I think that's really for me, it was going through the COVID time, not having a lot of things that we used to be able to go and buy shortage of everything that was related, connected to our personal hygiene. Yeah, starting from there. And then right now with the Ukrainian war with with the grain. And so having all of this information and looking at it, I think, yes, we have to be able to overcome those differences and make sure that we are more in tone of getting our values and our perspectives for future to at least the majority of people, I would say. Yeah. Well, how about the you mentioned the war in Ukraine and the COVID? Those have been two huge, huge wake up calls, two shocks to our system. And maybe they're here to teach us some lessons. Oh, yes, I think exactly that. This is why I think change is important because we only can learn and can get better. Yeah. And when we interact with cultures, with politics, with language, with however values we have, we only can benefit from it. Yeah. And the more we can do it, the more we can find common ground to solve our problems. Yeah. And I don't think war is a solution. I don't I don't think that I hope political diplomacy will bring better solutions for all of us. Yeah. So but we also have our share to do every every one of us. Yeah. When we are consumers to look at how we are using the sources of energy, regardless if it's renewable or fossil, if I don't cut back on my energy usage, I have to know that it has an impact on my behavior as well. How I use energy. If I have PV panels or not, it doesn't matter because then I need more solar panels on my roof or more wind turbines, which brings another problem of using other resources. It's sand, it's steel. It's a lot of other things that we will run short on them later, with storage is the same. Yeah. The batteries are toxic after 12 years. We have to change them. Yeah. So how are we going to recycle that? These are things that I think we all should keep in mind that and inform the public. I think that is really the key to give the information to the public so that they know and make good decisions for them themselves. Yeah. That would be environmental awareness. And then a higher theme that you keep going through is understanding of our fellow human beings. We have many, many, many different cultures. And I personally, and I think I know I share this with you, I was born and raised here in Hawaii. All the ethnic groups just all mixed up. And I just took that for granted. That's just how the world is. And what a wonderful way to view the world. And then, as I mentioned, I was able to travel the world, including through some of the poorest countries on earth. And it gave me a whole different understanding of humanity in all diversity. I think that's when you're talking about awareness, I think that's a crucial part of what you would have us be more aware of. Yes. Yeah. I think that's really basically what we're facing right now is the challenges to have a solution that everybody can feel that they are represented in. I think that is what we need to create. And I hope that this was helpful for you, for the viewers, and that we continue giving accurate information and hoping that the public makes it useful for themselves, also having the bigger picture of the planet and other countries, other cultures in mind. And that's absolutely true. And we need to close. But let me point out that you live on the west side of Oahu. And normally in the old days, you would have driven all the way from the west side to downtown Honolulu, found parking, and then gone into the ThinkTech studio. Now you're sitting in the comfort of your own home and consuming virtually no additional energy, as opposed to all of that gasoline consumption. So that's one way we can certainly adapt technology and gain new habits and reduce our footprint on the planet. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And I appreciate that. Yes, that's definitely something very helpful here. And well, on that very cheery note, we need to bid adieu. Ms. Jisoo Rosala, thank you so much. Thank you. And this is ThinkTech Hawaii, August 1st, 2022. See you next time. Mahalo.