0:00

Hub and Spoke.

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Audio Collective.

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Hi, I'm Willow Belden

0:15

and you're listening to Out There,

0:18

the podcast that explores big questions

0:21

through intimate stories outdoors.

0:25

This

0:25

season, we're exploring the theme

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Secrets of the Earth. Each

0:31

episode, we're harnessing the power

0:33

of nature to uncover new

0:35

truths and help us understand our

0:37

own humanity.

0:40

But before we get to that, I want to introduce

0:42

you to someone. My

0:45

name is Denis Bulichenko.

0:47

Everything started in 2015 when I moved to Italy and I

0:49

moved from

0:52

a relatively flat area.

0:55

So the mountains were like a really, really

0:58

exciting thing for me. And

1:01

I started to go hiking

1:04

really, really often. And

1:06

also, I have a daughter. She

1:09

was small back then, but she

1:12

also was kind of really curious,

1:14

asking me all the time, what's the name of that

1:17

mountain?

1:18

I think a lot of us have been in this situation.

1:21

You're out in the mountains, you see a peak

1:24

off in the distance. It looks tantalizing,

1:27

but

1:27

you can't figure out what it is. So what

1:30

do you do? Well, if you're

1:33

Denis, you create a new app.

1:36

The app he made is called Peak Visor,

1:39

and they are the presenting sponsor

1:41

for this season of Out There. Peak

1:43

Visor is on a mission to help you make the most

1:46

of your time in the mountains. Check it out

1:48

in the App Store. You just might love it.

1:56

Jacob Erickson is a wilderness

1:58

guide in western North Carolina. He

2:01

takes people out in nature to do healing work,

2:03

dealing with grief and that sort of thing. It's

2:06

a process he's been going through himself for

2:08

years.

2:12

Jacob's been facing up to his own mortality

2:14

since he was around 16.

2:17

But the life-threatening situation he's reckoning

2:20

with isn't what you might think. He

2:23

hasn't been diagnosed with cancer. He's

2:26

not suffering from organ failure. He's

2:29

not actually sick with anything.

2:33

I'm going to let Heather Kitching pick up the story

2:35

from here. And, trigger warning,

2:38

this piece discusses depression and suicidal

2:40

ideation.

2:43

To be honest, Jacob didn't really grow

2:46

up around nature. He's originally

2:48

from Phoenix. It's like a concrete

2:50

jungle built on a desert. And

2:52

the small strip of lawn in his yard?

2:55

Well, lawn was

2:57

a generous word for it. It was more

2:59

like a patch of dried up grass

3:01

and dirt. He wasn't even allowed to

3:03

touch the bushes near the street because

3:05

they were oleander.

3:07

They were toxic.

3:14

Jacob was what you might call a sensitive kid,

3:16

highly attuned to the world around him.

3:19

He was like a sponge for information.

3:21

I remember being present

3:23

watching the 2000 election

3:26

between Bush

3:29

and Al Gore and asking

3:32

my parents, why

3:35

didn't Al Gore win because he won

3:38

the popular vote? And then they're like, Jacob,

3:40

you're like seven. This

3:43

is too big of a question

3:46

for you.

3:47

Notwithstanding Jacob's rather unusual

3:50

fascination with grown-up topics, he

3:52

had a pretty typical childhood in a lot of ways.

3:55

He had

3:55

a sandbox in his yard, got

3:57

into video games and space aliens.

4:00

played on a soccer team for a while. For

4:03

Jacob,

4:04

the first clue that something was wrong came when he was eight.

4:14

I remember my dad waking

4:16

me up in the morning and he

4:18

tells me, Jacob, this

4:20

is a day that will change your life

4:23

for the rest of your life. And

4:25

I was just like, oh my gosh, mom's

4:29

dead. And I asked him,

4:31

is mom dead? And he was

4:33

like, no, someone flew

4:36

a plane into the Twin Towers. And

4:38

I was like, where's the Twin Towers? I had

4:40

like no idea. He's like, it's New York City.

4:43

And I was just like, where's

4:45

New York City? Like it was just

4:47

totally beyond my eight-year-old brain.

4:51

Jacob gets out of bed, goes

4:54

into the living room. His mom

4:56

and two sisters are watching TV. He

4:59

starts watching with them. And

5:02

he sees those images that we've all seen a million

5:04

times now. The North

5:07

Tower with a giant gash near the top, smoke

5:10

billowing into the air.

5:12

I do remember this

5:16

sense

5:18

of like a shock wave hitting

5:23

me. Mixed

5:27

with the feeling like the floor just dropped out

5:30

underneath you. It

5:34

was just this like sense of that

5:40

things aren't really safe. This

5:46

is the day that Jacob starts to notice

5:48

the symptoms of a disease

5:51

that's not in his body,

5:53

but in society. In

5:55

his case, though, that disease

5:58

will just about kill him. before

6:00

he discovers what you might call a natural

6:03

remedy.

6:09

After 9-11, Jacob

6:11

wants to learn more about this sickness

6:14

that he perceives in the world. He

6:16

watches Mississippi Burning, reads

6:18

about the Civil Rights Movement, and

6:21

when he's 15, he goes to this leadership

6:23

camp. It teaches young people about

6:25

things like race riots, genocide

6:27

against indigenous peoples, the Holocaust,

6:30

Rwanda, and Darfur. He

6:33

says it gives him a language for what ails

6:35

the world,

6:36

a diagnosis,

6:38

several actually, colonialism,

6:41

xenophobia,

6:42

white supremacy,

6:44

anti-Semitism, and

6:46

it motivates him to start fighting them.

6:49

He joins his high school social justice

6:51

club, gets involved in activism,

6:54

and then something happens that makes

6:57

Jacob realize that the sickness is even

6:59

worse than he imagined.

7:04

He goes to Australia on this student

7:06

ambassador program called People to

7:08

People. He gets a chance

7:10

to go snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef,

7:13

and what he sees shocks him.

7:16

There's

7:21

nothing but miles and miles of pale

7:24

white coral against a blue ocean.

7:27

He sees like one fish, a

7:30

big flat thing about four feet

7:32

long, and a couple of sea cucumbers.

7:35

And that's it.

7:36

I

7:45

thought I was going to see like clownfish and starfish,

7:48

and

7:51

what I got was like Haiti's

7:53

underworld.

7:56

Jacob is totally taken back by this.

10:01

When he gets to university, he starts

10:03

looking up climate science in academic

10:05

journals. He grows concerned

10:07

that climate change could cross a threshold

10:10

where feedback loops feed into

10:12

each other and then collapse the entire

10:15

ecosystem, killing us all

10:17

in the process. Or that the fallouts

10:19

from climate change like food shortages

10:22

and mass migration could lead to

10:24

social unrest and war as

10:26

humans destroy each other trying

10:28

to compete for scarce resources.

10:31

And remember,

10:32

Jacob lives in Arizona.

10:34

He goes jogging on a dried up riverbed.

10:37

It's not hard for him to believe that life

10:40

as we know it is on its last legs. He

10:43

says he started to become like Chicken Little,

10:46

telling anyone who would listen that the sky

10:48

was falling.

11:03

This

11:13

is like we all need to learn this.

11:17

So it's possible that you're listening

11:19

to all of this and thinking it

11:22

all sounds a bit extreme. But

11:24

I think it's important to point out here that

11:26

what Jacob fears is not

11:29

out of the realm of possibility. Just

11:31

lately, scientists have been calling for more

11:33

discussion about this. The Center

11:36

for the Study of Existential Risk at

11:38

Cambridge University published a

11:40

paper last summer in the Proceedings of the

11:42

National Academy of Sciences saying

11:45

we need more research on a possible

11:47

climate endgame.

11:48

Dr. Kristi E. By

11:50

is a co-author of that paper. She's

11:52

a professor at the Center for Health and the Global

11:54

Environment at the University of Washington.

11:58

There is a possibility of a climate catastrophe.

12:05

According to E. Bye and her co-authors,

12:08

we could cross thresholds this century

12:10

that led to mass extinction events

12:12

in the past. They say climate

12:14

change could trigger other catastrophes,

12:17

like international conflict, or

12:19

exacerbate the spread of infectious diseases,

12:22

or trigger system failures that unravel

12:25

societies. And that

12:27

could all happen at even moderate levels

12:29

of warming.

12:32

Jacob is not the only person

12:34

who is consumed by fear over

12:36

this. A study in the Lancet

12:39

found that 59% of young

12:41

people worldwide were either very

12:44

or extremely worried about climate

12:46

change, and 45% of

12:48

them said it is affecting their

12:50

daily life and functioning.

12:53

It was Dr. Derek Seabree Jr.

12:55

who told me about that study. He's

12:57

a core faculty member and the master's program

13:00

director at the Michigan School of Psychology.

13:03

He's registered with the Climate Psychology Alliance

13:06

as a climate-aware therapist. And

13:08

he says climate grief can

13:11

cause people to give up on life.

13:13

I mean, it's a form of fatalism. Like the idea

13:16

of, like, well, why would I go to university?

13:19

The university I want to go to is in a place like

13:21

California where they might not be here

13:23

by then. So why would I even try to go

13:25

there?

13:27

You can see these fears reflected in online

13:29

forums, too. There's a massive

13:32

community on Reddit for people who are concerned

13:34

about social and ecological collapse.

13:37

It's the kind of place where people post questions

13:40

like, should I even bother saving

13:42

for retirement?

13:44

Nearly half a million people

13:46

take part in these forums. And

13:49

Jacob was just like them. Reddit started

13:51

asking himself,

13:53

what was the point in even living

13:55

if everyone was just going to die?

13:58

I kept thinking.

14:00

Am I going to bear witness to this? Am I going

14:02

to watch the cascade

14:05

of climate change, you

14:09

know, like extinguish

14:11

millions of species and people?

14:17

At this point, Jacob is sympathizing

14:19

with climate radicals. His

14:22

friend Quincy, who's black, starts

14:24

calling him the White Malcolm X. He

14:27

draws a picture in his journal of a polar

14:29

bear with a rocket propelled grenade blowing

14:31

up a gas pump. He's

14:33

become cynical of the climate movement.

14:36

He thinks the game's already over.

14:38

I was like, oh

14:40

my God, there's no saving this.

14:43

Like I can't save anything. None

14:45

of this. Yeah,

14:48

like that was rock bottom.

14:51

Flash forward to July of 2013. Jacob's

14:56

back in Phoenix for the summer after his first

14:58

year of university in Flagstaff.

15:01

He's staying with his sister in

15:03

the family home they grew up in. He's

15:06

by himself one night

15:07

sitting on the sofa. He's

15:09

got a bottle of sailor Jerry Rum in his

15:11

hand and his mind

15:13

is filled with images of death

15:16

and destruction. I mean,

15:18

birds flying out of the sky, putrefied

15:22

rivers and seeing,

15:24

you know.

15:27

Trans

15:27

women's skulls bashed

15:30

in. I'm seeing black

15:32

boys murdered. I'm

15:34

seeing like exploded

15:40

bombs and just like nuclear

15:44

war. Like it was just like a cascade of

15:46

imagery of just like the bleak

15:49

darkness of,

15:52

you know, reality, honestly. And

15:55

I'm just like, man, this is so bad.

15:58

And I was just... Yeah,

16:00

trying to wash

16:04

the images away. Drink

16:07

by drink. And it

16:09

would hold for like five seconds. And

16:13

then I would take another drink. And the images

16:15

came back

16:19

worse and worse and worse. And

16:20

for whatever

16:22

reason, I don't know how my 38 revolver was on the table.

16:28

And I remember the way the lamp light was reflected off the end of the

16:32

barrel. And

16:35

it was a matte black, uh, black,

16:37

uh, black, uh,

16:39

black, uh, black, uh, black, uh, black,

16:42

lamp light was reflected off the end

16:44

of the barrel. And

16:46

it was a matte black, uh,

16:50

revolver, snub nose revolver.

16:53

And I'm looking at the, the

16:56

end of the barrel and, and there's this glint

16:58

of light. And I just

17:01

remember thinking, that's

17:03

my out. This

17:05

is how I get rid of these screens. And

17:08

I think I remember like, might as well just finish

17:12

the bottle first. And

17:26

I remember having

17:28

the bottle on one hand and the gun on the other hand, holding it.

17:41

And I remember

17:44

taking a swig from the bottle

17:48

and then I, everything kind

17:50

of fades to black.

19:59

all darkness and gloom in his head. But

20:03

his dog Jack needs to go outside. So

20:06

Jacob takes him out for a walk. It's

20:08

a cool day. It's like a nice 75

20:10

degree sunny day.

20:18

Slight breeze in the air.

20:20

They walk through the neighborhood and

20:22

then up a hill.

20:24

And it's this mesa where

20:28

it's flat on top. And

20:31

I just go to go sit with my back up to a ponderosa pine. And

20:45

I can smell their butterscotch

20:48

vanilla aroma. And

20:52

I can feel the sun on my skin

20:55

and the warmth. And

20:58

I just feel like the well

21:00

and that pressure of coming up from my lungs,

21:03

coming up from my chest into

21:09

my throat, feeling that throat

21:11

quiver of tears. And

21:17

I'm on my knees weeping. And

21:27

it was the weirdest thing of like this sense

21:41

and feeling of serenity, the

21:43

sense and feeling that like everything

21:46

is gonna be okay. Like it's like I was being held. And

21:51

my grief

21:53

started to disappear.

21:55

It started to loosen its grip

21:58

and... I just

22:01

felt like everything

22:03

was going to be okay. That

22:09

the Earth that I loved so deeply was

22:15

going to be alright. So,

22:23

just to be clear, it's not that Jacob

22:26

suddenly concluded that climate change

22:28

isn't happening. Or that violence

22:31

and inequality aren't serious

22:33

problems. That's not what

22:35

he meant by the Earth being alright.

22:38

It was more that he saw himself as

22:40

part of a much larger picture, in

22:42

which life and death are part of a natural

22:45

cycle.

22:46

He is going to die, but

22:49

his body will nourish new life by

22:51

becoming food for bacteria and

22:53

insects, who will in turn feed

22:56

other animals and plants.

22:58

And this whole cycle, all

23:00

of humanity, is just a blip

23:03

in the Earth's history. And the

23:05

Earth itself

23:06

is just a blip

23:08

in a much larger universe.

23:09

When I reach out and go big,

23:12

it's not as existential of a crisis

23:15

as I once interpreted it to

23:17

be.

23:19

Scientists have discovered like 100 million

23:21

galaxies. And

23:24

inside each galaxy is another 100

23:26

billion stars. And

23:30

around each star is an untold

23:33

number of planets. And then

23:35

here we are, and our one planet, and

23:37

our one star. And

23:41

that smallness in

23:44

the grand scheme of the universe

23:48

is quite helpful.

23:52

Jacob spends the day kind of basking

23:55

in the afterglow of this planet. moment.

24:01

And then the next morning,

24:02

a part of him is like,

24:04

did that even happen? Was

24:06

that even real?

24:09

Call

24:09

it what you want, but it changes

24:11

Jacob's life completely.

24:16

He goes out and buys a backpack, starts

24:18

spending all his free time in the outdoors.

24:21

He's backpacking or mountain biking every

24:23

weekend in every spare moment he can

24:25

get.

24:26

But he says, it's not like he just

24:29

stops being depressed. He

24:31

just stops running from it. He

24:33

turns toward it and he lets

24:36

nature comfort him. He

24:38

says he probably still wakes up with a dark

24:40

cloud over his head between four and

24:42

six days a week. But the first

24:44

thing he'll do is go outside

24:47

and listen for the birds singing.

24:48

I often tell people now that

24:51

like going outside is my church.

24:53

Like going outside, backpacking

24:56

is my like devotion. As

25:03

time goes on, Jacob's focus starts

25:06

to shift away from death

25:09

to questions of how he wants to live for

25:11

whatever time we have left on this planet.

25:14

Because he's still not convinced that

25:16

he has that long.

25:19

He's basically going through a process like one

25:21

that Dr. Seabree described to me, a

25:24

process of learning how to live without

25:26

hope.

25:27

If you knew that tomorrow wasn't promised to you,

25:30

would you still go to work?

25:31

Like what would you do with that day knowing that tomorrow

25:35

might be the last? For

25:38

Jacob, finding the answer to that question

25:41

means going to grad school, studying

25:43

sustainable communities, even

25:45

going on a vision fast. And

25:48

he eventually becomes a full-time

25:50

wilderness guide.

25:52

Two years ago, he and his partner

25:54

finally left the desert of Arizona for

25:57

a place with an abundance of water.

25:59

North Carolina.

26:02

They set up a company with some friends that

26:04

takes people out on the land to do healing

26:06

work

26:07

and they call it Remembering Earth.

26:13

A couple of years back, Jacob was guiding

26:16

a day hike in the Smoky Mountains for

26:18

a young guy in his 20s. Suddenly,

26:21

out of the blue, the sky asked Jacob,

26:24

if you knew you only had a year to live,

26:26

how would you live your life?

26:28

I just chuckled to myself. I

26:30

just laughed because it was a question

26:34

that I, in one

26:36

way or another, ask myself, most

26:39

days I wake up, is this

26:41

my last day on Earth? Or I

26:43

would just tell myself today was my last day

26:45

and how would I live that day?

26:48

So how does Jacob answer that question

26:50

now?

26:51

Last year, he told a version of

26:53

his story to the Collapse Support Forum

26:55

on Reddit. That's the forum I mentioned

26:58

earlier for people who are struggling with

27:00

climate anxiety. This

27:02

is part of what he wrote,

27:04

quote, if I only had one

27:06

year, I would still float rivers,

27:09

hunt, garden, play music,

27:11

write poetry,

27:13

wrap my arms around my lover,

27:15

laugh with friends and family, but

27:18

most of all, I would want to be rekindling

27:20

the fire of life within others.

27:23

I

27:29

have such a vivacious

27:31

desire to live and

27:34

like know

27:36

that when I do die, oh my gosh, I'm

27:38

going to just be so sad

27:41

to leave this place because even

27:43

with all the horrors happening, I

27:47

know

27:47

it will be difficult and you know, it's

27:49

like, I know I will lose everything that I love

27:51

and

27:55

it's a price that I'm willing

27:58

to pay again and again and again. to

28:01

steep myself in the beauty with

28:04

other people no matter how dark and

28:06

bleak it is. You

28:13

know, I was drawn to Jacob's story

28:16

because it made me think of people that I've known

28:18

or read about who've been diagnosed with

28:20

terminal illnesses. The

28:23

intense grief and depression, the

28:25

learning to live without hope, but

28:28

also, for some, that kind

28:30

of spiritual journey. Finding

28:33

comfort in natural beauty and human

28:36

connections, trying to

28:38

find meaning in the life they have left.

28:41

And I think to myself, this is what

28:43

we're doing to young people with all

28:45

our inaction on climate change. This

28:48

is what happens when we scream at

28:50

our politicians to do something about

28:53

gas prices, but not about

28:55

our climate targets. This

28:57

is what happens when we egg on the culture

29:00

wars on Twitter and Facebook,

29:02

instead of fighting to end social

29:04

inequality.

29:06

It's older generations like

29:08

mine, who are the ones who should

29:10

have had the maturity and the resilience

29:13

to face up to what's happening to our planet.

29:16

We are the ones who should be demanding

29:18

real solutions and welcoming

29:21

real sacrifices,

29:23

but instead we've left it to teenagers

29:26

to make peace with the possibility

29:29

of dying young.

29:36

That was Heather Kitching. She's

29:38

a freelance radio producer based in

29:40

Thunder Bay, Canada. If

29:43

you want to check out Jacob's company, it's

29:45

called Remembering Earth. If

29:49

you liked this story,

29:51

please share the link with a friend.

29:53

We are always eager for new listeners

29:56

and your recommendation is our best form

29:58

of advertising.

30:07

Coming up next time on Out There. Thoughts

30:10

started crowding my mind. This can't be happening.

30:12

I should have listened to my gut. I think it was

30:15

okay to go on this hike alone when it was

30:17

getting dark. What if there's a creepy person

30:19

following me this whole time? What if I don't make it back

30:21

to the campground tonight?

30:25

How do you get back on track when you

30:27

lose your way? Out There is

30:29

a proud member of Hub

30:32

and Spoke, a collective of idea-driven, independent

30:34

podcasts.

30:38

One

30:47

of the other Hub and Spoke shows that I think

30:49

you'll love is called Rumble

30:52

Strip. It's based in Vermont

30:54

and the host, Erica Heilman, tells

30:56

these really beautiful, intimate stories

30:59

about everyday people. She invites

31:01

herself into their homes and talks to

31:03

them about what they love, what they hate,

31:06

what they're afraid of,

31:07

and how they're probably a lot

31:10

like you.

31:11

Rumble Strip was named the number

31:13

one podcast of 2022 by The New

31:15

Yorker and it won a Peabody Award

31:18

that year as well. It's also gotten recognition

31:20

from The New York Times and The Atlantic. In

31:23

other words, it's the real deal.

31:25

You can listen to Rumble Strip wherever you get

31:27

your podcasts or at rumblestripvermont.com.

31:33

A big thank you to Peak Visor

31:35

for supporting this season of Out There. As

31:38

I mentioned, Peak Visor is an app

31:40

that helps you make the most of your adventures. You

31:43

can use it to figure out what mountains you're looking

31:45

at and you can take advantage of

31:47

their 3D maps when you're planning a

31:49

trip. Plus, they have a Peak Bagging

31:51

feature so you can keep track of all your accomplishments.

31:55

If you'd like your own personal mountain guide, check

31:57

out Peak Visor in the App Store. You

31:59

just might love it.

31:59

it.

32:06

Today's story was reported, produced, and sound-designed

32:09

by Heather Kitching, story editing

32:11

by me, Willow Belden, OutThere's

32:14

advertising manager is Jessica Taylor,

32:16

our audience growth director is Sheba Joseph,

32:19

our ambassadors are Tiffany Duong, Ashley

32:21

White, and Stacia Bennett, and our theme

32:23

music was written by Jared Arnold. Special

32:26

thanks to all our listeners who are supporting

32:28

OutThere with financial contributions, including

32:31

Adam Milgram, Alana Mugden, Matt

32:33

Perry, Eric Biederman, Phil

32:35

Timm,

32:36

Doug Frick, Tara Jocelyn,

32:38

and Deb and Vince Garcia. It's

32:41

your support that makes this podcast

32:43

possible.

32:44

We'll be back with another episode in two

32:46

weeks. In the meantime, have

32:48

a beautiful day, be bold,

32:51

go outside, and find your

32:53

dreams.