Alex Honnold On The Responsibility of Adventure, Olympic Climbing & Reversing Climate Change

The Rich Roll Podcast

Rich Roll

Health & Fitness, Education, Self-improvement, Society & Culture

4.8 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2021

⏱️ 107 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With great adventure comes great responsibility. It’s not enough to simply appreciate our natural world—we must also protect it. Preserve it. Regenerate it. All of us. And with our full attention. No one embodies this ethos quite like Alex Honnold. Renowned adventurer and global icon of athletic mastery, Alex is widely recognized for his death-defying ropeless ascent of El Capitan—a 3,600-foot sheer vertical rock face he climbed without a harness or any protective gear whatsoever. It was a feat that stunned the world. Landed it’s cinematic document Free Solo an Oscar. And cemented this unique and compelling individual as one of the greatest athletes of all time. While our conversation back in 2018 covered this incredible accomplishment, much has transpired in Alex’s life since the whole Free Solo affair. So this conversation takes a different tack, exploring a different side of Alex. We steer clear of the more well-trod terrain and topics he has exhaustively fielded at this point and instead venture into new life experiences and other interests post-Free Solo: Alex as storyteller, podcast host, climbing historian, environmentalist, activist, husband, and more. The crux of today’s exchange is Alex’s environmental work with The Honnold Foundation.The impact he’s made thus far. He’s intentions for the future. And the steps he intends to pursue to help reverse environmental degradation: the greatest existential threat to life on Earth. We talk about the challenges of combating the climate crisis and why his current passion is solar and renewable energy. We also discuss his new turn as a podcaster, co-hosting the newly released Climbing Gold, a special miniseries of climbing-centric stories that explore the past, present, and future of the sport. In addition, Alex shares some insight into climbing’s debut at the Tokyo Olympics. But overall, the most important lesson Alex imparts is the responsibility of the adventurer. To be a climber, skier, cyclist, runner, or outdoor enthusiast, you must also be an environmental steward—and take personal action to preserve and sustain nature’s finite offerings. FULL BLOG & SHOW NOTES: bit.ly/richroll591 YouTube: bit.ly/alexhonnold591 Alex is wise, remarkable, and someone I deeply admire. My hope is that this conversation will inspire you to think more deeply about how you can positively impact the world we all share. Peace + Plants, Rich Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I think that the most important issue facing humanity is climate change or sort of environmental
0:05.9	degradation, more broadly, let's say.
0:08.3	And at the same time, I think there's no point in trying to solve environmental problems
0:11.8	that don't also improve quality of life that like help the human population.
0:15.9	And so, you know, I think that when you focus on environmental issues, it's important
0:20.0	to also sort of focus on the equity issues of like all humans should be entitled to certain
0:25.1	standards of living.
0:26.5	And so I think that if you're trying to solve environmental issues without also focusing
0:30.0	on the equity side, like making sure that all humans are equally able to take care of
0:34.5	themselves, you know, basically just not fair to not do this both at the same time.
0:38.6	And so that sort of informed the initial projects from the Hanoi Foundation is like looking
0:42.8	for environmental projects that also improve centered living, that like helped folks.
0:47.2	And over the years, we basically always wound up choosing solar projects because they
0:52.0	just often are the most elegant solutions to those kinds of problems, and we're like good
0:56.5	for the environment, good for people, you know, clear win-win.
0:59.8	And then after several years of supporting a bunch of different solar projects, we were
1:02.9	like, we should just make this explicit.
1:04.2	So at a certain point, I just think solar is such an obvious solution to many human problems.
1:10.8	I'm Alex Honald, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.
1:26.1	Yeah, buddy, that's right.
1:27.7	It's true.
1:29.2	The free soul of free solo global icon of athletic mastery.
	...

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