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The Rich Roll Podcast

Sailesh Rao On Why Ahimsa (Nonviolence) Is An Essential Response to Climate Change

The Rich Roll Podcast

Rich Roll

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

4.713.3K Ratings

🗓️ 16 October 2015

⏱️ 104 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today I am pleased to offer a conversation with environmentalist, engineer and technologist Sailesh Rao, the founder and Executive Director of environmental non-profit Climate Healers. With a focus on ahimsa — the Sanskrit word for non-violence — as an essential and perhaps the most powerful response to climate change, Climate Healers promotes technological and engineering advances aimed at clean air and reforestation. Partnering with NGOs, tribal villages, and school clubs, current projects include efforts to devise an affordable and high-functioning solar powered stove to replace the traditional — and quite environmentally detrimental — wood burning stoves that proliferate across low income areas of India. An electrical engineer by training with a Ph.D. from Stanford University, Sailesh’s background in technology includes stints at both AT&T Bell Labs and Intel, where he was instrumental in developing early iterations of the internet itself. Sailesh is also the author of Carbon Dharma: The Occupation of the Butterflies*– a call to undo the planetary damage done by the human species in its present “caterpillar stage” of existence. As for palmares, Sailesh was selected as a Karmaveer Puraskaar Noble Laureate, an award presented by iCONGO (Indian Confederation of NGOs) whose primary mission is to encourage citizen action for social justice. This is a conversation about environmental preservation, the inherent and incredible power of ahimsa, the imperative of service and a reminder that each and every one of can make a positive difference in the world. Sailesh is a highly intelligent, contemplative and compassionate man devoted to making the world a better, cleaner place for us and future generations. I greatly enjoyed this conversation and applaud his advocacy and devotion to service. I sincerely hope you enjoy the exchange. Note: Apologies for publishing this episode a day late and for the brevity of this post. I am currently traveling internationally with little free time or internet access. I'm doing my best under the circumstances and appreciate the consideration. When I find the bandwidth, I may supplement this entry with additional thoughts and resources. Thanks for understanding! Peace + Plants, Rich

Transcript

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0:00.0

The Rich Roll Podcast

0:10.0

Hey everybody, how you guys doing? What's going on? What is happening? I'm Rich Roll. I am your host. This is the podcast episode 185. Can you believe that? 185 episodes?

0:22.0

The podcast where I sit down with the outliers, the big forward thinkers across all categories of positive,

0:29.0

paranoid, breaking, culture change. Why do I do this? To help all of us, myself included, unlock and unleash our best, most authentic cells.

0:37.0

So thank you so much for subscribing, subscribing, yeah, I can talk to the show for giving us a review and for always making sure to use the Amazon banner ad at Rich Roll.com

0:48.0

for all your Amazon purchases. The banner ads right there on the main podcast page doesn't cost you anything extra. You just click on it and then whatever you get on Amazon, we get credited. They don't charge you. It comes out of Amazon's pocket.

1:00.0

It's just a great, really easy, free way to support the mission and thank you so much to everybody who has made a habit out of doing this. It really does make a big difference.

1:08.0

So thank you. We appreciate it. Today I've got Silas Rayo on the show today. He is an environmentalist and engineer, a technologist. He's doing some really interesting things out in the world.

1:21.0

And I'm going to get a little bit more into him and his background in a minute. But before that, two things I want to cover. Two things.

1:28.0

The first thing apologies for the podcast being late this week. I am so sorry. But right now it's the middle of the night, somewhere outside of Frankfurt, Germany.

1:39.0

I'm in Europe. It's been a very busy last few days arrived here a couple days ago. I'm here for the Frankfurt Book Fair, which is the largest international book markets in the world. And I'm here to do press around the launch of the plant power way, which comes out in a German language addition, which is really exciting.

1:57.0

But it's been kind of a demanding last couple days of acclimating to the time change and doing a bunch of press, etc. By the way, check out the book. It's now available at Amazon.de for those of you who want to get a German language addition. It came out really beautiful, really proud of it.

2:13.0

And I'm going to talk to you about the next German public. I'm going to talk to you about the next German public.

2:20.0

I'm going to talk to you about the next German public. I'm going to talk to you about the next German public. I'm going to talk to you about the next German public.

2:28.0

I'm going to talk to you about the next German public. I'm going to talk to you about the next German public. I'm going to talk to you about the next German public.

2:35.0

I'm going to talk to you about the next German public. I'm going to talk to you about the next German public. I'm going to talk to you about the next German public.

2:42.0

The second thing I want to say is before we get into Scylush is let's take care of some business really quick.

2:49.0

Alright you guys, so this week's show, I'm going to keep this intro really brief because it's like the middle of the night.

3:02.0

I'm in the middle of nowhere in Germany. I'm extremely jet lagged and tired. But this is a really exciting show. I don't want to put a damper on just how amazing today's guest is.

3:12.0

Scylush Reo is the executive director of a nonprofit called ClimateHealers.

3:17.0

ClimateHealers.org. He's the author of a book called Carbon Dharma, the occupation of butterflies, really interesting book.

3:24.0

He's a training, he is an electrical engineer, a technologist, he's got a PhD from Stanford University. And very interestingly his technology career involved working very intensely on the very early iterations of the internet, which is fascinating.

...

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