 Think Tech Hawaii. Civil Engagement lives here. Welcome to Likeable Science. I'm your host here, Ethan Allen, on Think Tech Hawaii. Thanks for joining us. Likeable Science is all about how science is a vital and interesting part of everyone's life. It's not something just that scientists do. It's something that we all do. We all practice every day. We make decisions. We make choices. We figure things out using our science. But a lot of people don't appreciate that. So on this show we talk about why and how science is likeable to be appreciated. And with me today is Rob Kinslow. Welcome, Rob. Thank you. Rob is a sustainability consultant. But it's a very interesting career track, basically. Rob has done a lot of things with a farmer, was a high-tech engineer for Northrop, I think, doing weapons research or something. And now has a company, Ola Hawaii, Life for Sustainable Hawaii. I think what you said it means. So very interesting track for new sciences and something that not a lot of scientists do is moves we're in and out of science in that way or shifts so radically. I've made a few shifts myself in my scientific career but nothing quite this dramatic. So Rob, why don't you tell us just a little bit about sort of how you started. How you started as a rural Maryland, right? Yeah. And started as a farmer. Yeah. I was born and raised on an organic farm in western Maryland. And my dad was a farmer and a kind of technologist because he also worked at Mack Trucks building these, you know, high-tech trucks at the time. And then I grew up on a farm and I spent 95% of my time out in nature. And then, you know, when I got 18, 19, 20, I went off to and self-funded my way through the University of Maryland, became an aerospace engineer, mostly because I had a choice between archaeology and aerospace engineering. And they both begin with A? They begin with A. I don't know. Never got no further. One was in the earth and one was outside the earth. And so I guess that dichotomy or that, you know, right brain, left brain side of me continues to this day. And once I became an aerospace engineer, I worked for Northrop Grumman for 12, 13 years. For them, you did some very, some very cutting edge, weird, weird thing. Yes. For that matter, the technology that I worked on 20 years ago is just now coming to operational, you know, the JSF, the Joint Strike Fighter, which is now the F-35. And recent designs in unmanned combat air vehicles are just now coming out of the closet. And so I was deep in the black hole, the belly, the beast, doing design and analysis. Truly industrial complex. Truly. Very much so. So there we go. I mean, that's, that's harder to get out of, I would think. Well, I can tell you a story about that, if you'd like. Please do. I can tell you how I get out because I remember the very moment that I made the decision to get out. I was in the building I worked in on this very highly stealth, so called special access project technology. I would go through a locked gate, I would walk to, I would park my car, I would go to a building, I'd walk through another guarded gate, I'd go in the building, I'd go through another locked door with a guard, and I'd go to my own little cubicle which had its own wall around it. And I'd unlock that, I'd go in there, unlock my documents, pull out my computer, sit down in my computer and start my day. But I was walking down the hall in between these multiple facilities, and I saw an older man coming at me, and he was shuffling, and he was gray, and he was bent over, and he'd look like he had been there a long time. Turns out he was the original YB-49 flying wing engineer. He had been with Northrop for 50 years at that time. And I was walking down the hallway, and I looked at him, and something came over me, and I went, that's me, if I don't get out of here. And so I made a promise at that time to myself to break out of there. And it took me three, four years, but I did. And that's where, that's how I'm here today, is because I got out of there. Right, but so, okay, great. So you decide you're not going to work for Northrop anymore, you don't want to be in that end of things. But it would have seemed that maybe you go off and join a high tech auto firm, or something like that where you could keep sort of that same set of skills moving along, but you obviously made some different choices. I did. And I guess it was because of my farming background and my right brain kind of coming into maybe its own focus or power. But I have often thought, why didn't I do that back then? And I don't really know the answer to that other than to say that I got swept along by traveling around the world and becoming a documentary filmmaker on travel show and coming to Hawaii and learning about the culture and the people and the art of lomi lomi and practicing that and then getting into community development, which is really why I quit Northrop was because I didn't want to kill people anymore, no matter what kind of people they were. I wanted to help people. And so that's why has really given me that fertility to create these seeds of sustainability, as I call them. Excellent. Excellent. So what is it that Ola does? Well, I have to give lots of credit to Jane Yamashiro for giving me this project. She had a project called Ola Hawaii. And the tagline for the project is living a sustainable Hawaii. And so there's a lot of unpacking there to do. First of all, living. It implies consciousness. It implies practice. It implies some set of principles, practices, prints and behaviors that then bring us into a place called Hawaii. And so for me, that really attracted me. And after she retired, I continued this work in in my own project based life. Okay. So did I answer your question? Yeah, yeah. No, it sounds interesting. I was just she was telling me that I was just thinking, I wonder what his old colleagues from Northrop Gremlin would think if you could hear him talking like this. Well, they're all, you know, they're all have houses and kids and and BMWs and maybe Teslas these days. And I still say in touch with them. Many of them, you know, they're a good group of guys. And there was very few girls in that group. I think one woman, one woman engineer. But I think they respect me. I haven't ever asked them that. But, you know, it's a different life for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And you've gone on, you've done a number of different projects over the years here. Maybe you could enlighten us with a couple of your early ones and sort of how they've how they've then brought you. I think we started some back in the States, actually. Yeah, I began my I began my first sustainability project when I was working in Northrop. I was walking through this open space between Marina Del Rey and Los Angeles Airport called the Biona wetlands. And because I was looking for a place to kind of get away from the concrete jungle. And I laid down on the ground, which wasn't very wet in this area. And I had an epiphany. And it seemed to me at that time that all the animals and plants and all the voices of the wetlands kind of rose and came through me. And it was very kind of unsettling at the time, being a science based engineer, you know, very rational, realistic base. But it it caused me to create a land trust. And I created a land trust called the Biona wetlands land trust with a team of people. And we went on to work with others in a campaign to save 640 acres in which Steven Spielberg wanted to build his DreamWorks studio. And it took us six years. And we eventually wrote a conservation easement. And we wrote a $20 million bond issue that the governor of the state of California signed to purchase the land. So that was my first big win. And it was done because I had an engineering job. I was able to fund that project with my engineering money. And I've always self-funded all my projects. So that was my first project. When I came to Hawaii, I worked for a while for the Hawaii Ultimate League Association producing a bunch of sports events videos as a volunteer. And then I began a group called Facing the Future. And we were a group of people who brought experts in sustainability to Hawaii, like Dr. Steven Schneider, Climate Change, Richard Heinberg, Francis Moore LePay, people like that thought leaders who could educate and lift up the discussion in Hawaii about sustainability. This was 2004 through 2008. So, and then in 2008, I guess, you know, it was, there was a big, you know, the 2007 through 2009 of the crash, you know, financial crash really affected a lot of people in Hawaii. But in 2007, I was watching Oprah interview Al Gore on her show. And I saw him provide an invitation to have people come and train with him in public speaking and climate change communications. And I put in my application and I got accepted out of 16,000 people. Me, a little me in Hawaii got accepted and I went and was trained and that began another whole trajectory of public speaking and community education based on science, the science of climate change. And I've done about almost 80 presentations around the world, as far away as Africa, California and in Hawaii, but mostly to government and businesses because I believe that we should be talking to people who aren't in our agreement circle, who don't agree with us, we should be talking to them first, rather than to the people who do agree with us. I think it's the fatal flaw. Right, you don't need to sing to the choir. Why sing to the choir? You know, it's most effective and so that's what my campaign has been here in Hawaii, is mostly that. Well, that sounds very exciting. I'm going to take a little side trip here and tell them a little campfire story. It sort of sort of fits. So there's a little beast called the woolly bear moth and the woolly bear caterpillar, basically a little fuzzy caterpillar up in the Arctic, quite ubiquitous there. And so it's born from an egg when it finds spring day in the Arctic and of course Arctic spring and summer is very short, right? And so it frankly goes and eats and eats and eats and eats as fast as it can, but by the end of the summer it has not gotten nearly enough food into it to go undergo metamorphosis. So it basically crawls under a rock, spins a little silken row as it were, just lies there, freezes over the winter, very under the snow. Next spring comes, snow melts away, warms up a little bit, sings thaws out, wakes back up, transitions. Eats and eats and eats and eats and eats again all summer long, but typically at the end of the second summer it still hasn't gotten enough food. Wow. Goes and wraps itself up in its little silken robe under a rock, freezes again. Now maybe if it's in a fairly warm place down in southern Canada it might by the third summer have enough energy and growth to turn this bit, but far north these things will go for 12, 14, 15 years. Wow. 15 transitions, 15 cycles before they actually finally get to pupate, go into hanging out as a chrysalis for a bit and emerge as a moth, live for a few weeks and die. You know, hopefully having made it in laid eggs by the, but again just that kind of transition that just, you know, you talk about that and just put that to mind. Well that's very interesting because I was struck by just the length of this dormancy, so-called dormancy, preparing for this one moth event that happens in the course of a summer. Exactly. That's incredible. Yeah, it's an interesting thing. I just, when you were telling me your story, it just hit, there's a real parallel. That's a really a late bloomer. What do you think about late bloomer? Persistence, right? Get you there. Keep moving ahead, moving ahead. That's what you've got to do, right? Thank you for that. Yeah, okay. I think we're about ready to jump out to a quick break and so Rob Tinslow is here, a Sustainability Consultant and with me Ethan Allen, here on Likeable Science on Think Tech Hawaii and we will be back in one minute. Aloha, I'm Keeley Ikeena and I'm here every other week on Mondays at 2 o'clock p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Together. In Hawaii Together we talk with some of the most fascinating people in the islands about working together, working together for a better economy, government and society. So I invite you into our conversation every other Monday at 2 p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network. Join us for Hawaii Together. I'm Keeley Ikeena. Aloha. Do you want to be cool? If so, watch my show on Tuesdays at one called Out of the Comfort Zone. I sang this song to you because I think you either are cool or have the potential to be seriously cool. And I want you to come watch my show where I bring in experts who talk all about easy strategies to be healthier, happier, build better relationships and make your life a success. So come sit with the cool kids at Out of the Comfort Zone on Tuesdays at one. See you there. And you're back here on Likeable Science. I'm your host Ethan Allen here on Think Tech Hawaii. With me today in the Think Tech Studio is Rob Kinslow. Welcome again Rob. We're talking about Rob's very interesting transitions from being a farmer to being a Northrop engineer working on surfaces for high-performance jet engines to shifting over in the sort of epiphanies he's had that helped move him to really helping people develop self-sustainability mindsets and providing the tools for self-sustainability, right? Yeah. And you do this, I gather through we've done it in different ways at different times and currently sort of what's your big focus right now in terms of is it still a climate change stuff for you going out and promoting that? Are you talking more locally now? Yeah, so I stopped talking about the problem so much and talked much more about solutions as I broaden my focus beyond just the specific problematic of climate change because really the problem of climate change is really a problem inside of us and with our the way we see the world and who we are and so much of my work today is with talking directly to people I have a project called Sustainable You in which I teach individuals how to be more sustainable. So what do you mean by more sustainable? So a footprint is like the number one kind of thing you can think about to be sustainable what is your footprint? What does footprint mean? Footprint is a science-based metric for measuring what your energy, your food, your water, your carbon, so you seek to reduce your footprint on the earth. That old adage about take only photos and leave only footprints. You want to leave a small footprint on the earth as possible in terms of your resource use. In terms of your influence or your ability to help others you want to leave a large footprint. So we talk about these when I'm coaching we talk about these various ways of looking at sustainability and how you can be conscious about what you're seeking to do on this planet. Sure you really need to live in your 4,000 foot three car garage house you know. And so one of the things I do is again speak to business leaders. I actually actively seek out business leaders and another thing I do is I speak to entrepreneurs. So I'm a mentor over at Shamanad's Hogan Entrepreneur Program and then I reach out to business leaders through my own self-funding and my own initiative to talk to them about how they can make their companies more sustainable. So because business and I believe business is the largest influence on the planet. And if you look at the aggregate set of behaviors that could be called business. We so why not start with business? Another big network because I'm a systems guy systems engineering another big network is faith groups. So I spend a lot of time talking to faith books faith groups in their language about stewardship about how they can green their churches about what it means to be a good steward of these islands and of land in general. But and it all really comes down to an inside job. Who are you? What do you prefer? And how are you going to get there? Yeah I mean it is interesting for I think it's very true for us here on Hawaii we have a lot of choices to make we can do a lot of things. I was just reading a very depressing article that basically was looking at the multiplicative nature of wave action on top of rising sea levels and and that's and it's impact on Pacific Atoll Islands and basically pointing out that the wave action aspect has not been incorporated in earlier models and what this suggests is that rather than being habitable until around 2100 a lot of these places will become uninhabitable around 2050. Very very sad and very very troubling for these people what do you do if you're a family living there now and bringing up your kids there you know and it's here too I mean it's not just out in the Marshall Islands or out in the Pacific it's here on the North Shore. One thing that is being questioned a lot is the use of hardening of the shoreline and how and I'm not I'm not for hardening the shoreline but I'm not I'm not a great proponent of just saying let nature take its course and just let's retreat from the shoreline there are things we can do to work with the coastline with the wave wind and water action to to protect our people and to protect our lands. Absolutely absolutely they're actually investigating a lot of those in the Marshall Islands although they are still building seawalls yeah but they've got you know huge huge issues they've got nowhere to retreat to basically except probably here you know here in mainland they can and where are people going to retreat what happens to the nature in the conservation zone when the beach starts receding inward at a great rate those people are going to either leave the islands or go upwards right and that's going to leave less room for the species that are already there right no there is a huge so conservation is going to be affected right yeah and you're right I mean businesses drive a lot of this and so somehow the issue has got to be to help businesses see it in their long-term sustainable stable interest to live as sustainably and operate as sustainably as possible right and leave a small footprint and and that is playing out directly again this year here we're heading towards 10 million visitors per year are we going to have to cap the number of beds we have in hawaii for tourists at what level can we be sustainable is infinite growth on a finite planet a still a viable metric for success it's not yeah I live in Waikiki and just a block less than a block from where they they just built two large condos and you just look at this and say did anyone think about impacts I mean this is huge amount of water use huge power use that's getting more cars on the street yeah it's more wear and tear on the roads there's more just people around walking using the beach yeah oftentimes I think the sort of long term and more subtle impacts are not fully considered well because we're law we're rules and regulations are for today they're not for tomorrow and so this is what chip Fletcher and those folks at the office of climate change sustainability and resilience are doing is they're trying to look out into the future look over the horizon and seeing what we need to do now here for them right and that that's not what rules and regulations have done to date right right so they didn't have to comply with anything to any consideration of those ideas yeah it's very very uh but that being said we still have plenty of things we could do that other islands and other lands are doing raising the roadways uh you know we're going to have to get that gravel and all from somewhere but we're going to have to raise our surfaces in order to adjust and adapt right and again we should all be doing much more with conserving water and being sure the water fresh water gets in and recharge our aquifers rather than just pours out as the recent storms so vividly get just pours off the island and ruins the bays well that's another thing I do is I help people design rainwater catchment systems for their homes and so but then we have a big water problem because fresh water floats and as the sea water comes in and inundates the porous rock underneath of us it's going to push the fresh water up and out right and so what and then what where do our aquifers go so these are big problems that I don't think we maybe just be starting to address yeah and and the and the challenge is what are how do how much do we care do we really care I think we do but then how we're going to implement solutions to these actions and problems that we have right and how can we best prepare the youth of today to really deal with what they're going to end up facing because we've sort of we're a little late to the plate here basically right well I think we have a good cohort of youth behind us we don't have enough we need thousands and thousands more teachers and of of sustainability in the state and agents of change but there are hundreds of I'm embedded in the in the non-profit community and there are many many people working on teaching youth so I'm highly encouraged you know that's why I don't talk about problems anymore because problems get me into a state of depression solutions get me into a state of optimism right so I stay focused on the solutions we refer to as asset-based thinking you don't you don't think about the deficits you think about the assets oh yeah another way of looking at yeah all right we've we've now worked with the Pacific Islands a lot of our languages had to change help us realize these people bring tremendous amounts of strengths resources to bear that's right to develop their communities better and we just have to be aware of it and make and it's inside of them it's not exactly something that in their culture it's not like money or homes or anything it's their strength absolutely absolutely so that's one of the one of the great things so if you had five sentences to tell to tell youth or tomorrow what they need to know to be sustainable to lose sustainably what would your advice be to the youngsters of today oh that's uh well I just say figure out who you are who do you care are you interested what's your life trajectory look like think of your life as a trajectory not so much as a series of dots think of it as a continuous curve and figure out who you really are and then from that go what's my preference what kind of future do I want to live in what kind of place do I want to live in how do I want to express myself right as you vividly demonstrated you can you can make those choices you can turn corners and go off in very different directions and you thought you were going right and then how do we get there and I look to nature you look at murmurations they're these huge flocks of starlings they're pods of fish you watch how thousands of fish can make a turn on a dime and that's what we as humans need to learn how to do and so uh but they're all thinking together we're not all thinking together so so we need to all start thinking together and I would urge the the youth of tomorrow to band with people who think like you and work together for social change right excellent and now before we wrap up I'm gonna ask a completely off the wall question oh that wasn't the question no no completely off the wall question if as a superpower you could either fly or become invisible which would you choose and why fly as in fly in the atmosphere right or become visible um in order to do anything I would probably uh become invisible and uh why the reason is because I'm a kind of a um a background guy I I'm a farmer by training and experience I like to plant seeds and planting seeds is invisible mostly right uh farmers are invisible right so I would have to say that I as a farmer planting seeds of sustainability for sustainable leadership that would be my uh choice would be invisibility excellent that's that's uh because we all become invisible at the end of this life right exactly and our we can live on only through our deeds that we've done through our impacts on other people how we've made other people think differently right the seeds we plant are the only things that um take us forward yes indeed indeed so thank you so much for this conversation thank you you know it's it's been a really rich talk here with Rob Kinzlo who has moved from the farm to the cutting-edge military industrial lab to the world of sustainability climate change and resiliency and made that transition look smooth and flawless I assure you thank you so much Rob it's been great having you here I've learned a great deal from you as I leave from well my guess thank you I'm sure you've taught our our viewers much more much more too I appreciate you so come back and join us again on likeable science next week uh until then I'm Ethan Allen host of likeable science we'll see you on Think Tech Hawaii