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From Here Forward shares stories and ideas about amazing things UBC and its alumni are doing around the world. It covers people and places, truths, science, art, and accomplishments with the view that sharing better inspires better. Join hosts Carol Eugene Park and Jeevan Sangha, both UBC grads, in exploring solutions for the negative stuff out there — focussing on the good for a change, from here forward.
[00:00:00] Carol Eugene Park: Hello, friendly alumni. Welcome back to From Here Forward, your favorite UBC Podcast Network podcast. I'm Carol and she's Jeevan.
[00:00:14] Jeevan Sangha: That's me.
[00:00:16] Carol Eugene Park: Happy Climate Change Awareness Month, people.
[00:00:18] Jeevan Sangha: Is that a real thing, like, in March? I kind of like it. It has a nice ring to it, you know, like hashtag climate crisis, hashtag climate anxiety.
[00:00:27] Carol Eugene Park: When you add the hashtags, it definitely sounds a lot cuter than the reality of it. Fun fact, in the last two years of me living in Vancouver, thank god that is over, one of my biggest motivators, uh, to move was because of the big one. And now that's hashtag climate anxiety. How's your climate anxiety doing these days, Jeevan?
[00:00:48] Jeevan Sangha: Honestly, pretty awful. It never really goes away for me. If I had to describe it, it would be something like a constant looming anxiety. But, our conversation today with a UBC student made me hopeful for the future. Today's episode is the first part of our two-part series on how UBC’ers are responding to climate change and taking action.
[00:01:07] We'll tell you a bit more about him and his work in climate activism, but Carol's aggressively waiting to give you a definition of hashtag climate anxiety.
[00:01:15] Carol Eugene Park: I am, and thank you for giving me the space. So climate anxiety is one of many forms of anxiety that us young people have. It is such a glamorous life that we live. So here's a quick definition for you from NIH, aka the National Institute of Health. Climate anxiety is a quote, heightened emotional, mental, or somatic distress in response to dangerous changes in the climate system, unquote. But suggests that, quote, paying heed to what is happening is a healthier response than turning away in denial or disavowal, end quote.
[00:01:44] I've also never used the word disavowal before but that's the definition for you.
[00:01:49] Jeevan Sangha: Yeah, well, that sounds about right, and even though it can be easy to fall into the slump of doom and gloom, it's very important that feeling helpless isn't gonna really get us anywhere. So, Carol and I decided that we would tap into our optimistic attitudes, because apparently we have them. And speak with UBC affiliated people to talk climate change and hope.
[00:02:11] Carol Eugene Park: You know, the anger and persistence of today's youth consistently inspires me. Hashtag power to the youths. We talked to Bashar, a UBC economics student, a COP27 and 28 UBC delegate, and documentary filmmaker who is one of many youths to be part of the climate movement. And I'm going to let Jeevan introduce you to him because that was a lot of talking on my part.
[00:02:33] Jeevan Sangha: So, in addition to being a student, Bashar is a climate activist and filmmaker from Bangladesh. We had a great opportunity to watch his short film, Stories of Change. I won't spoil too much, but essentially it's about igniting conversations, disseminating knowledge, and forging connections because he believes every story holds the potential to shape our future.
[00:02:51] Carol Eugene Park: We hope you enjoy!
[00:02:54] Abul Bashar: Hi everyone, my name is Bashar. I am originally from Bangladesh but have been living in Vancouver for the last three years. I study economics in my fourth year of my bachelor's program. I have been involved in the climate activism space for the last couple of years, for almost the last five years. And what I do basically is try to bring people together, um, through storytelling, through data, through other mediums, and move them towards climate action.
[00:03:25] Jeevan Sangha: And can you tell us about a particular moment or period in your life when the effects of climate change in Bangladesh kind of became more apparent to you and where you recognized it as an overwhelming reality.
[00:03:38] Abul Bashar: Absolutely. So I did my high school back in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. And in like the curriculum I studied is the national curriculum. So it's very backdated. It doesn't have like up-to-date content. But we had incredible teachers in my school who would always bring up topics of current global affairs. And I remember when I was in ninth grade, we had a teacher who brought up the topic of climate change and what it, what that means for us, for the whole country, Bangladesh. And one of the things that he mentioned in that class was that one third of Bangladesh is going to be underwater by 2050. And when I went back home that day, I looked it up and I tried to understand what it really means for my country and I realized that in that one third, which is supposed to go underwater because of sea level rise, is my hometown. Where my family and my dad and my mom, even today, lives and works. So that was very personal to me and I felt very helpless and I think we all go through phases of eco anxiety. But that was like, you know, a big reckoning for me. And I went back to school that next day and tried to speak with the teacher to like, you know, see how things are working and I was really interested in like, just not letting that happen.
[00:04:55] And I remember him talking about the two ways that a person can take action and one is through policymaking and the other one is through entrepreneurship. So in policymaking you basically redefine the rules of the game and try to intervene. And in entrepreneurship, you create a new game. So either of those strategies would like, you know, at that time I thought would help like solve that crisis.
[00:05:17] So I went with entrepreneurship because policymaking was more difficult at that time to get involved in. Also, I didn't have a lot of idea about how advocacy works. But I tried to bring together people to create like circular economy systems, to work on different workshops and just to let other of my peers and friends know who are, who were my age at that time about the wrath of climate change, what it means for my country. And that really got me involved.
[00:05:44] And after moving to Vancouver, I just saw like how disconnected people are from the realities of the global South. And I was very lucky to be able to go to COP, the UN United Nations Climate Change conference that happens every year as a part of the UBC delegation in Egypt in 2022. And that just, you know, magnified, whatever assumptions I had about how like, you know, people are disconnected. So I went back home the next year, did some traveling across the country with my bike just to learn about what climate change really meant for my people. And then went to the next COP and premiered the documentary film that we made.
[00:06:23] Jeevan Sangha: I want to go back to when you mentioned COP27. So you attended COP27 in Egypt as a student delegate. What was that like? And, you know, you kind of talked about how it was something that really solidified you wanting to commit to telling stories about climate justice. So what were some of the things that you noticed there and what did you take away from it that you now implement in your practice as a storyteller?
[00:06:46] Abul Bashar: So I'll give a little bit more context about what or how COP works. So there are mainly three types of delegates who interact at COP. The first one are, there are five groups of delegates, but three interact the most.
[00:06:59] The first one are US, uh, UN delegates who are basically participants from different UN bodies. The second one is party delegates who are representatives of different countries. And the third is NGO Delegates, who are NGOs or organizations like UBC or Oxfam. They send a group of delegates to follow what's happening in the negotiations. And the party delegates are essentially the ones who take part in different discussions, negotiate different climate policies and funds and everything else. And also the UN mandates both the times I went to COP as a UBC delegate, the first one being in Egypt, I was an NGO delegate and I, being an NGO delegate from, as someone who's from Bangladesh, I could vividly see the lack of representation of my country. And also of like different other countries who are very, very vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
[00:07:51] And this lack of representation affects climate policies because there are less people in the room to bring up the topics that you want to, uh, bring up. There are less people advocating for the things that you want to advocate for. And that creates a weird power dynamics between people with power and people who are facing the, like, major wrath of climate change. And it's just like, you know, accelerating as cops go by.
[00:08:15] So last year we had almost 2000, uh, oil and gas, uh, representatives from around the world attend Dubai, uh, the COP in Dubai. And you can imagine how they would put their mandate first and they would put their business mandates first over the mandate of, you know, climate refugees or the climate vulnerable population.
[00:08:35] So, the first-time attending COP in Egypt. I was very excited, you know, just to be there. And I was very overwhelmed with my hope for like, you know, how the world leaders are coming together. And it actually takes a lot of effort to come to a place and try to negotiate and talk and have conversations and just listen with others. And I really appreciated the opportunity to witness that.
[00:09:00] But by the third day, I was seeing how it's like, you know, a repetition of whatever things that they're saying. And it's not a lot of action, but rather, uh, false promises. Sometimes even a lack of empathy, uh, not understanding where people are coming from and just putting their own agenda or self interest in the first place at first, over like the needs of others. And I think that really made me realize that, you know, like, how, a lot of these climate leaders or a lot of the political leaders, uh, businessmen, the reason they were putting their self interest in the first place was because they didn't really realize what climate impacts mean or how it's impacting the lives of people.
[00:09:41] I'm sure if the CEO of Shell spent a month in Sundarbans or in the southern coast of Bangladesh with a family who's a climate refugee struggling to go from one place to another not knowing what meal to eat next. I'm sure Shell would like, you know, uh, change its tides and they would recognize what their action mean for like these people so far away from the realities that they live in.
[00:10:09] So, and the only way to bridge that gap is through empathy and it's through storytelling. So I think attending the first COP as a Bangladeshi, I think I'm more well suited to tell the story of Bangladesh than other countries. So I decided that I'll go back home and even bridge the gap that I have with my community. Because I grew up in Dhaka, I've been living in Vancouver for the last few years, so that also means my notion of how I think about the world is very skewed.
[00:10:37] It's like, you know, I've been living with a lot of privileges, uh, all my life. So I wanted to go and explore, um, and hear from and learn from the stories of my people, stories of Bangladesh. And that's what I decided to do. And it was a very inward journey and not like, you know, I didn't have a lot of goals in mind when I started on my journey. I just wanted to truly experience what living in a country like Bangladesh means and what, how it's, it has changed over the last few decades with climate change. And I did that and I realized like, you know, how that has made me so well informed about, uh, the realities. And I wanted to share that with my friends and I wanted to like, you know, just tell the full story, uh, with filmmaking or with visualization.
[00:11:25] So we ended up filming the documentary by the end of the cycling trip. And we also created a climate atlas. Anyone can check it out. It's atlas.storiesofchange.co. And which is to visualize all the climate impacts across Bangladesh, things like surface air temperature, precipitation changes. And it is modeled to predict what it's going to look like for the next, uh, 70- 80 years. So you can see how, you know, the wrath of it is going to impact the life of people, life of millions.
[00:11:56] And also I was very optimistic as well, because I had the privilege of meeting some of the brightest climate scientists, climate activists who are so passionate, more than I can ever be. And they're working on the ground and they're dedicating their entire life to this work. And it's just insane. It was insane for me to witness that and being able to contribute and do my part in this journey. Um, it, I take it as a privilege. And in doing that, I was so lucky to be able to connect with people from all over Bangladesh and beyond. We had a team from India who worked with us. Um, and it's just crazy to see how, you know, the power of empathy, what the power of empathy can look like. And that only reason people are willing to volunteer their time without any expectation for compensation or remuneration is because they believe in the power of storytelling. They empathize with the people. They understand what impact our work can have on the lives of millions.
[00:12:53] Carol Eugene Park: So you kind of touched on this a little bit before. But you decided to travel back home and you cycled across. Um, how did that decision come to be? And then also how did the UBC E-C program play into making that happen?
[00:13:08] Abul Bashar: After coming back from COP, I took my final exam and then I moved to Toronto for a co-op work term and I signed up for an eight month co-op term. But by the end of third month, I was Like, oh my God, what am I doing with my life? There’s so many things that I have to do. Why am I stuck in a job? Why am I showing up at eight am? Uh, so there was a little bit of that. But mostly I really, I think every day when I went to work, I would take the 510, uh, from Kensington Market to like downtown. And I would think about like, you know, how lucky I am to be able to live the life I live and to be able to afford whatever I want, uh, including Krispy Kreme and like anything else.
[00:13:57] So I was very, I was thinking about that a lot. And I just thought that like, you know, it's, it sounds a little cliche, but I think with the privileges you were like, you know, given you owe it to the world that you have to do something with it. And I was thinking about how I can make an impact or like how I can at least like, you know, do something about what I feel.
[00:14:26] And I thought about like first just learning about what it really means. And like the learning component was very, uh, crucial in this journey because I think as I'm saying things as a climate activist, even my perspectives are very nuanced and I'm very aware of it and I wanted to primarily breach that gap.
[00:14:49] So I wanted to travel across the country, either through my foot or through a cycle, and I thought that cycling is probably gonna make it faster. One of the things that I realized from, uh, COP 27 is climate finance is so crucial and it's not like there is not enough climate funding. But it's not like, obviously that's a big problem, but the bigger problem is getting the money to the grassroot communities, getting the money to important climate interventions. And that is such a difficult thing to do from a, from an outsider's perspective. I have some good friends I made from attending COP 27, World Bank. And they were talking about how even when they're working with the government, it's very, very hard to work with the NGOs because of bureaucracies, because of corruption and all of that thing that you may expect, but that is also changing.
[00:15:45] And I think I wanted to see that firsthand and see if we can do something about it. So the Atlas we built, what we did is we identified all the climate NGOs working in the country. And mapped them on the map, like, you know, with the pinpoint that, hey, this is the organization that's working in this region. And down the line for the next version of it, we want to give more datasets that allows a funder to identify which organization they want to fund based on their funding mandates. And just make it more accessible for them to A, find the right people and also for the NGOs to be able to request fund. And that is exactly what we want to do.
[00:16:28] So I think, uh, part of the building atlas has been done, but the next step is probably to work with the right stakeholders, which we are doing. We are working with a university in Bangladesh who work in climate adaptation, and they are one of our partners as well to make it more accessible to researchers. We're also working with policy for in Bangladesh to work with different parliamentarians to make it more accessible to them. Because even like the parliamentarians are sometimes not aware about the climate impacts in their constituencies. So just making that more accessible is what we're trying to do.
[00:17:05] But all of that, like, you know, all the aspects of our like stories of changes projects. It really didn't come like all at once. We spoke with NGOs, we spoke with different government leaders, we spoke with parliamentarians. At the end, the outcome was what we have today, the documentary film and Atlas. And we are making, like, you know, we are also launching a fund that is to support a few grassroots organizations. And all of that has come into place after multiple conversations. And all of that was possible because of the support I received.
[00:17:42] And initially when I wanted to do that, when I was still in Toronto, I first launched a crowdfunding platform because I didn't have enough money. I had like around $10,000 saved up from my three years of university, which is not a lot, but good enough for me to start the project. And then I reached out to all the people I met at UBC asking if there's any grants or funding support that I can get. And I spoke with like, you know, everyone from UBC studios about ABC's of filmmaking to connecting with like, you know, people from different sustainability hub and others. And all of that conversation in the end allowed us to raise enough money so that I not only reimbursed myself and the savings I put in the initial stage. But also able to have the extra fund we have to launch the climate fund that we are launching in every single day in Bangladesh, there's 2000 climate refugees migrating to the capital because they just simply don't have any place to stay.
[00:18:51] It's such an important statistics because Imagine like, you know, your generation, like your forefathers, like all the generations, you know, have lived in a place called it home, but suddenly you realize and see that it's no longer, you cannot know, you cannot live there anymore, whether it's through salinity or for sea level rise or like water intrusion, or you can't grow crops. And you have to leave everything you have ever built and your generations and your You know, your family has ever built and leave it to move to a city, a new city.
[00:19:25] Jeevan Sangha: And once you were in Bangladesh and you were speaking to people day in and day out. What, uh, was surprising about some of the things that you learned, um, just from their lives and their day-to-day experiences?
[00:19:38] Abul Bashar: The most surprising thing for me was the interconnectedness of other social problems with climate change. One of the stories we heard was about how child marriage, the rate of child marriage is suddenly increasing in some regions because of climate change. At the first glance, you, like, you know, it doesn't make any sense.
[00:19:57] But they explained it to me about how there's this part in northeastern Bangladesh called Sunamganj, which acts like a swamp. So it's underwater for six months, sometimes eight months. And because of climate change, the frequency and the intensity of that natural event is just increasing day by day. And when that happens, there's not enough resources in the family to feed everyone. And oftentimes the first instinct is to, you know, marry off girl in your family. And sometimes the girl is a nine-year-old or a ten year old. And since they are not going to school, they're not receiving any education because all the schools are underwater in the first place. The best thing you can do with the set of options you have and the lack of scarcity of resources, you marry off the girl.
[00:20:45] And that just came as such a big shock to me because never in my life I've ever imagined that it can be like, you know, triggered by that. And also some of the other things that like, you know, made me realize is how like a lot of the conflicts that is happening is because of climate change and people aren't fully aware about how that comes into play. But it is very interconnected and it affects your life and like, you know, it's so interconnected that you only see it from a macroeconomic lens. But when you are in there, it's hard to like, you know, witness that and realize.
[00:21:23] Another thing that surprised me is how people are so hopeful about their future, no matter what they're going through. It's just crazy for me. Like I feel a midterm and I'm like, oh my God, what's happening with my life. But they are literally losing everything they ever owned. But when I asked them, okay, so what's the future for you? What does the future hold for you? And they're telling about how, like, you know, they say that, like, it's okay, we have Allah. Allah is the Muslim God. And they're hopeful that, you know, it's, he will decide the fate for them and he will, and it will be all good because they believe in God. And I think that's just so magically powerful.
[00:22:11] Oftentimes, I think we undervalue what the power of hope can be. But I've seen it in communities and how, despite losing everything, they're still so determined and so dedicated to build it again, to start over. Even if it means that you're a 40-year-old and you have to look for a new job in a field that you have never, like, you know, done before. But they would still do that. And I think that hope is really, really important in this journey and not just for them, but for also for people like me who have the privilege to like, you know, work on the other side and create opportunities and create, uh, programs that allows them to thrive.
[00:22:55] Jeevan Sangha: And building on that, you know, what, like, I took away, especially from watching your film was that there's so much adaptation happening so much, um, just like quick response and like, just built out of necessity from the people who are facing the harshest effects of the climate crisis.
[00:23:13] Um, and those stories don't often make it to the places like COP and to where people are theorizing about what to do about climate change. So from your perspective, if you had a, if you have anything else to add, what do you think it would take to make this global climate conversation more inclusive of marginalized people's voices, but also their interests?
[00:23:34] Abul Bashar: First of all, I think we need to get rid of oil and gas representatives at COP. And I know it's, uh, a very hot take and it's difficult, uh, like we are having the next COP in Azerbaijan. In Dubai, uh, in the last COP, there were more oil and gas representatives than there were delegates from Bangladesh and Pakistan combined, I believe. And you can imagine, like, these are some of the most climate vulnerable countries in the world. But they don't have enough delegates. But you walk around at, in the venue and you see so many people, uh, representatives of, uh, Shell, BP, and the problem is they don't have the NGO badge, they have the party badge. So they can intervene in different negotiations, they can intervene in different discussions, in bilaterals, in multilaterals. And they intervene how much funding is allocated, they intervene if there are more sanctions on oil and gas. And that really makes a big difference because it's just so difficult to keep telling your story and like, you know, keep telling why it's important and then you see these people show up and then it's just difficult to like, you know, ask them to like, you know, put the collective interest over their own self-interest. And I think that has to change.
[00:24:50] And the second thing I had that has to change is probably not making places like COP or academic institutions about just things where we talk about things but making it a place of action. As a UBC student, I can, I'm happy, like, I say to all my friends and people I meet, I think about my experience in university and most of my learnings, most of my best times at university were times when I was not in class. And I think it's very crucial and it's very important for us to revisit how we impart education because so much of it is still stand and deliver lectures. So much of it is still, uh, creating assignments and a class dynamics where we put some people on top of other. And create like signaling mechanisms for employers to decide which employee to take.
[00:25:48] I think as humans, we were never supposed to be working for others. We were all entrepreneurs, but after industrial like revolution and like after all that thing that happened in the eighteen-hundreds, systems have changed a lot. And I think we should revisit how education is to be imparted and more emphasis on empathy, more emphasis on storytelling, more emphasis on connecting with each other.
[00:26:16] Carol Eugene Park: So you kind of talked about this a little bit earlier. But um, what was the reception like with your film when you, uh, premiered it?
[00:26:25] Abul Bashar: I cried, I was like crying because we got like a standing ovation at the Canadian event that happened a few Fridays ago. And it was just so, I felt so happy to be able to share the story with my friends and my family and like people in Vancouver. And at COP, we also had a really, really good reception. We were able to bring a lot of people together, uh, different, from different walks of life to come and see our work. And that was also very powerful. Not just for us to, like, be able to share the story, but also for us to be invested in telling the full story.
[00:27:06] And I think at the core of the film, is the Atlas, which should take more attention than the film itself. Because the Atlas is what we are trying to use as a tool to make funding more accessible. We have already, uh, created the beta version of it, but now we are, as we are entering phase two of our project, we want to create a more robust atlas where we have more information, more data. And we are trying to work with different stakeholder groups to see how we can, like, you know, first of all, let the funders use the Atlas as a tool to fund initiatives and also work with the government to ensure that we are able to incorporate this as a government tool, so that policymakers are aware about which areas need support. So I think everyone who I have had the privilege of talking to and sharing our work has taken it very positively and very, with a very light hearted approach.
[00:28:04] Uh, but I personally feel the urgency of the work and so does my teammates. And I think we don't want to wait until the next, you know, big event or the big climate disaster before we take actions. And, uh, that's why we are launching the fund. Um, that's why we are in constant communication with different other groups. That's why we are trying to have meetings with World Bank and Jeff. Because a lot of these processes also takes time. A lot of these relationships building the rapport takes time. I'm very hopeful about our work, I'm very hopeful about the people who we work with. I'm very hopeful about the world we are building all together because at the end of the day, like because of how social medias work, we only hear the negative stuff, but there's so much positive out in the world and there's so much power in community, and I think that's often overlooked in the negative stuff.
[00:28:57] Jeevan Sangha: Yeah, I feel like hope has been such a common thread throughout both the doc and this conversation. Um, I remember the quote from the film where it said hope is our most powerful tool and that really stuck with me and I think a lot of where that hope lies is in the youth. Uh, so I'm curious about your thoughts on the role that you see youth playing, but also more specifically, what role do you see Bangladeshi youth playing in the future of this global climate movement?
[00:29:26] Abul Bashar: I would quote Rihanna on this. I would say the role that Bangladeshi youth will play is work, work, work. And I think that there's a lot of work that has to be done. And it's not like we are tired. It's not like we're jaded. We have the hope, we have the ambition, we have the dedication and thrive. So it's just like, you know, I have so many incredible friends from all over the world who are studying to be the best lawyers, to be the best entrepreneurs, to be the best chemical engineers, and best physicists. And I think all of them have a very Bangladesh focused, global south, focused lens.
[00:30:06] And it's not like only Bangladesh, it's a very global lens, and they want to work and they want to contribute. And yeah, just getting that work done, keeping that passion, I think that's the role that youth of Bangladesh will play. And not just the youth of Bangladesh, but from around the world. And I think that passion, that dedication is there even for most of my friends in Canada.
[00:30:29] Carol Eugene Park: So you know, how do regular people, more so UBC alumni, how can we help you and support your work?
[00:30:36] Abul Bashar: So if you're working in the space of climate finance or if you're working in the space of philanthropic foundations or funds, I would love to have a conversation with you and see if we can work together.
[00:30:47] If you're working on the corporate side of things with ESG and have some corporate social responsibility fund, I would also love to talk to you and see if there are ways we can, uh, work together because right now the fund we are launching, most of it comes from the access we have from our fundraising effort, but it's not going to be sustainable. We need to keep raising fund. We need to like, you know, make sure that we held on to the momentum and keep building on and keep like, you know, disrupting things. And that, and it takes a village to be able to do that. It's not an individual effort in any way whatsoever. We have a team of 40 plus people. We're tirelessly working and if you also are not from any other background, but just want to have a conversation or see if there's, or ideate in terms of how you can collaborate with us, I would also love to, like, you know, just do that and beyond everything, if you want to learn about our work, I'm also happy to have a conversation.
[00:31:52] Jeevan Sangha: Listen, climate anxiety is very real and honestly, a rational response to where we're at in the world. But hearing Bashar and his stories definitely quelled my anxiety a bit. It's normal for us to get bogged down by climate anxiety. But one of the few things that really helps me is to take action and stay connected to global resistance movements. And remember the power of adapting. I mean, that's what those who are acutely affected by the climate crisis are doing.
[00:32:16] Carol Eugene Park: Yes, and I totally agree with you. It's okay to feel down and gloom. So I'm here for the whole movement, but you know, if you're like me and you're a bit more of a pessimist, take a few days. Just, you know, sit in the gloom, doom scroll, and then we'll take it the next day.
[00:32:32] Jeevan Sangha: I think that everybody copes with the climate crisis and, like, the looming doom in the world differently. And sometimes I also need to take a beat. But our conversation really helped shine light on some issues that I think you and I maybe weren't as aware of before. And to find more of Bashar's work and how to support his further project and where to see his film, check out our show notes.
[00:32:55] Carol Eugene Park: Thanks for listening! Make sure you catch our next episode by subscribing or following our show on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're feeling your feels, please drop us a review. You can find me on Twitter @Caroleugenepark.
[00:33:07] Jeevan Sangha: And me on Twitter @JeevanKsangha. From here forward is an alumni UBC podcast produced by Podium Podcast Company.