Surfing the Future: Todd Medema discusses how to be hopeful in the age of climate change

This is a machine-generated transcript. There will be errors. The audio file is the final record of this episode.

Lee Schneider
Todd, welcome to the show.

Todd Medema (00:33.6)
Thanks for having me, Lee.

Lee Schneider (00:35.448)
So let's start with why did you write this book? I really enjoyed reading it. You were gracious enough to send me a digital copy. It's called How to Surf a Hurricane. Why did you write this book?

Todd Medema (00:48.114)
Absolutely. So I wrote How to Surf a Hurricane because I think it's very important, the stories that we tell ourselves about the future. You know, there's all these examples of telling a story and then it coming true, like the Star Trek communicators. And so when I look at the stories that we've been telling ourselves about the future, there's so much despair and doomsday and gloom and as like, need more stories of hope and adaptation and showing that we can make it through all of the challenges that we're facing. And on top of that, I really love a good heist story. And I've never read a solar punk heist, so I thought like, we need one. I'll make it happen.

Lee Schneider (01:36.866)
Well, what is your definition of solar punk? Because not everybody may be familiar with that genre of science fiction writing.

Todd Medema (01:44.628)
Yeah, it is a pretty new genre compared to many of the other genres. I think of it as an emerging movement that envisions a regenerative future that's interconnected with community and nature. So it's regenerative, it's positive, it's hopeful, and it's focused on the people and the nature rather than, you know, like cyberpunk, which is...

very kind of dystopian, everything's gonna be bad, and it's really focused on like technology and capitalism.

Lee Schneider (02:15.894)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I guess William Gibson is, when I think of cyberpunk, is kind of the primary practitioner of that. Are there other solar punk writers that you know of or could recommend?

Todd Medema (02:29.268)
Yeah, some of my favorites, Becky Chambers, the Monk and Robot series, Susan K. Quinn, the When You Had Power series. Also, there's some great movies like Zootopia and Flow that I think strike the right chord there as well.

Lee Schneider (02:48.366)
You have a very interesting background that's technical engineering, product management. And when I read the book and when I was thinking about your background, I was saying there was probably a tipping point in this guy's career that he figured he had to write this book because if I were you, I'd be saying, well, I know a lot about batteries. I know a lot about storage. I know a lot about power generation and the management of all these things. So here's this story coming out of

Do I have that right? Is there anything like that at all?

Todd Medema (03:27.126)
It was actually kind of the opposite, backwards. I came into this from a climate perspective first, and that is how I got into working in clean energy. I was like, I want to use my engineering skillset to help make the world a better place. I did a lot of research, clean energy was like, wow, moving the needle a small bit here will have a huge impact. And so then I came in.

to the book with the same climate perspective of how do I have a positive impact in climate? Well, there seems to be a big gap in terms of storytelling, telling these stories of like, hey, we can do this. And then it just so happened, I have this engineering background, like, well, I guess I will write a book that takes advantage of all of these things that I know about the world.

Lee Schneider (04:14.798)
Yeah, it's very adept and smooth is maybe the word. All the there are technical things in it, but there's character and there's there's a lot going on. So I don't want the listener to think, oh, this is some kind of textbook or something. I mean, it's a heist. It's a Ocean's 11, Ocean's 13, Pick Your Oceans kind of idea. Yeah, you know, it definitely works on that level.

Todd Medema (04:37.578)
Yeah, thank you.

Todd Medema (04:43.51)
And that only happened through many rounds of editing. I aspired to make it kind of like the Martian or Ocean's Eleven where there is, it's backed by technical detail, but it's not like, you like you're saying, it's not like a physics textbook. But the first draft I wrote had over 100 footnotes. And so my publisher just kind of looked at me and they're like, Todd, no one has footnotes in heists. You know, you gotta stream light it a little bit.

Lee Schneider (04:46.798)
Mm-hmm.

Lee Schneider (05:01.486)
Yeah

Lee Schneider (05:10.304)
Right. There are conventions of the genre. They don't include footnotes, that's for sure.

Todd Medema (05:13.684)
Yeah, so I ended up taking all those footnotes and making a wiki that's on the book's website because there's so many interesting tidbits that I couldn't actually delve into that make the world richer because they casually mention it. But every one of those little casual mentions I did a whole research article on.

Lee Schneider (05:32.577)
Right. Yeah, I saw that wiki on your site, which also will put in the show notes. And I was wondering, wow, that's a lot of work. But obviously it's part of the process of this. I wanted to ask another question about the technical aspect of this. There maybe this is oversimplifying, but there tend to be in the climate activist world folks who believe that we're going to solve our problems with, let's call it human engineering.

getting rid of fossil fuel companies, even how to blow up a pipeline sort of solution, which is somewhat radical but backed by a lot of historical intelligence. And then there's, this is oversimplifying, but another side of people who believe that maybe carbon capture could work or maybe there's some technical solutions that could inch things along and would kind of save us.

I can, you can probably see where I land there, but I'm curious, what do you think about that divide and is there a divide?

Todd Medema (06:41.3)
You know, I do think there is a divide and it's something that I've wrestled with for many years. You know, I think a lot of people when they enter the environmental movement come into it from that perspective of like, we're consuming too much. The only solution is like degrowth, like let's stop living our lives. And it's honestly very depressing if you're just like, everything I do has a negative environmental impact. And it's not even true.

Like there's a really interesting organization, the 2000 watt society that calculated that if everyone on earth lived within a footprint of using 2000 watts of energy continuously, we could all live our lives sustainably within kind of the donut economics of the earth. And so to me, it's not like, oh, we have to stop consuming everything. It's like, we have to consume within moderation. and, frankly, almost everyone besides like Americans does.

But, you know, part of that is that technology will help us be able to consume more and more efficiently. know, even just like switching from a gas car to an electric car. Now you can do a lot more with your life and stay within that resource budget.

Lee Schneider (07:53.377)
Right. But do you think that if we're really going to move the needle, like your character in your book, that guy, I wouldn't call him radical, but he's passionate. He really believes that this kind of battery is going to move the needle. He's not meditating. He's not, you know, making a

broad comparison, but you know, he's not recycling. He thinks there's a tech solution. So do you feel that? Do you feel as he does or are you using him as an example of a kind of a person?

Todd Medema (08:27.115)
Well.

Todd Medema (08:35.158)
somewhat both. You know, I think in the book he's actually pretty clear about the things that his technology will move the needle on. He's like, this will help electrify shipping and long distance flight. And those are both, you know, as of today, kind of unsolved fossil fuel consumers. Like we need technology to ever be able to fly across continents without fossil fuels. At the same time, there's also like a lot of things that we can do.

Lee Schneider (08:36.44)
Mm-hmm.

Todd Medema (09:03.176)
on like a more individual and local level that does not, that we can do with the technology we have today. so it's, it's some of both. And to me, the reason that I told this story was like, to demonstrate that we can take action with whatever skills we have. You know, there's frankly not a lot of books that show like an engineer taking a huge action. And so this is like, you know, even if you've never done like a heist before, like you can do it.

you know, even if you've like never convinced your local municipality to like increase bus service, you can do it. Like we can all take actions that move it forward, move that needle just a little bit at a time. And eventually with a bunch of 1 % nudges, we'll get there.

Lee Schneider (09:48.195)
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Exactly. Yeah. There's a wonderful thing that fiction can do, which is show characters getting themselves in deep trouble and figuring out a way to get out of that trouble. And that becomes a model, really, for us readers to think about, well, if I were in that situation, what would I do? It's the classic Aristotelian, you know, we feel what the characters feel on stage. So.

This book does that in a way that allows us to enter the mind of an engineer, kind of a marketer, kind of a product manager sort of guy, Moro, who is not no spoilers here, but just to give people a taste of the plot. He's he's a younger member of a powerful energy.

family and he's a bit of a visionary a bit of a rebel and is locked out by the older members of the family from Doing what he wants to do So he takes it upon himself to do a heist with no as you mentioned alluded to no real heist Experience, but he tries to work it out as he goes, which is pretty interesting

Todd Medema (11:02.728)
Exactly. you know, that's the working it out as you go is I'm glad you picked up on that because in the solar punk genre and in science fiction in general, most stories take place in the far future. It's like we've worked it out and now here's what it could look like. And there's not a lot of stories that are like in our lifetime. How are we going to work it out? And so I thought that was a really interesting area to explore.

Lee Schneider (11:18.731)
Mm-hmm.

Lee Schneider (11:29.58)
Yeah, definitely. Because there's kind of a, well, it's liberating to work in the far future. It's harder to work in the either near future or the now because of all the constraints and believability. How concerned were you with the idea of, this has to be believable. This has to work not only technically, but also emotionally and in the character driven sense.

Todd Medema (11:56.276)
Yeah, I mean, from a character and emotional standpoint, the believability of the characters was a really big priority for me because to me, what makes a story work or not is the characters. Like, you can have whatever super elaborately researched, well-constructed world, but if the characters are flat, two-dimensional, you can't relate to them, then it doesn't really matter.

the believability of the world is actually a really interesting point because as I was deciding to write this book I was like, why aren't there more stories of the near future? And they were like, boy, like you do not want to publish a book that takes place in like the next 15 years because the moment you publish it, it will be obsolete. Like every prediction you make will like start going wrong immediately. And so, you know, to me it was, I wanted to tell a story. wasn't out to like, become the next Brian Sanderson or someone. So I wasn't super concerned about it, but it was interesting to learn about the publishing industry dynamic that contributes to why we don't see so many of these like near future stories.

Lee Schneider (13:00.226)
Right. Now you mentioned earlier a couple of practitioners of solar punk and just give us a few more details about why those stories work for you and what you like about those authors.

Todd Medema (13:14.752)
So Susan K. Quinn, Becky Chambers, I think both have this almost like rebellious idea that the future can be cozy. Which is like, I really haven't seen it in many other places, but they're just like, you know, what if in the future, like you can just like have a starship and like do whatever you want with it and like have your friends over and like have like

a prairie full of wildflowers inside of your starship and just kind of these like rebelliously relaxing ideas that I think now more than ever we need.

Lee Schneider (13:57.398)
I like that rebelliously relaxing. It's true that there is kind of a rebellion maybe, but they see room for the humanness of because our world is becoming so technically driven and so driven by software predicted even a few years ago, everything will be software. But the human part of it, the writers who are picking up on the human part of it and

enjoying and expanding on our humanness. It works, you know, works in the Becky Chambers. I've read some of those Monk and Robot stories and, you know, it definitely works.

Todd Medema (14:37.098)
Yeah, and one of the ideas that I really love that they explore is just like, what is enough? Like what brings us joy? Because, you to your earlier point of like consumption and individual action versus technology, like one of the key contributors to that is like us as individuals, how much consumption is enough to bring us happiness? And by telling these stories of like, hey, like you can just like travel the world with like...

a tea cart giving tea to people and hearing these interesting stories and it's like, yeah, don't need a private jet in a yacht to be happy. Maybe we should reset our expectations and be just as happy and consume way less.

Lee Schneider (15:17.11)
Yeah, definitely. Now I asked you a couple of questions before we started and one was if you could have any book in any genre or age, what would it be? And your answer kind of surprised me. So I want you to give that answer and elaborate on that a little.

Todd Medema (15:32.362)
Yeah, so Ken Follett is this author who writes these amazing historical fiction. He did one about the cathedrals of Europe in the Middle Ages. He did one about World War I and World War II. And they are just like, even just thinking about them gives me tingles because they are so elaborately beautiful and well researched. You're following like a dozen different characters throughout history.

who just like happen to run into each other at these like pivotal moments. But you also get these like really just mundane insights into like what it was like to be a peasant. And man, to write something like that would just bring me so much joy.

Lee Schneider (16:15.224)
There's such depth, it's kind of the argument that people make about Moby Dick that you could read it and learn a lot about whaling. There are certain authors who just bring that texture to the work. It's pretty amazing, but they must have either a great research staff, a very organized mind, handy with an index card, or just have huge skills somehow.

Todd Medema (16:38.132)
Yeah, that, and so when I started writing How to Surfer Hurricane, my initial idea was actually to write something of that magnitude. And a few months in, I realized just how absolutely and insanely ambitious that would be. So I kind of scaled it back to like, okay, like let's keep it simple, like fast and short heist. But I think in a way, setting my sights that high initially pushed me to like build out a world and a cast of characters that would...

was much richer than if I'd just been like, I'm gonna write a heist. How do I quickly write a heist?

Lee Schneider (17:12.79)
Right, definitely, because it's always good to know more than you put on the page. You need to know more about the people and they need to be even as multi-dimensional as possible before you start writing about them. Otherwise it does, especially in the heist format, I imagine, which is very directive and, you know, it's one plot point follows another. could be tempting to sort of thin out.

the characters, but you have to keep that in, which you've done well, kind of finding a balance there.

Todd Medema (17:44.554)
Yeah, it's almost like cooking, you you want to start with something rich and then reduce it. If you start with something that's mediocre, then like, there's nothing to reduce to. It's just water.

Lee Schneider (17:48.728)
Yeah, right.

Lee Schneider (17:53.164)
Right. A good novel is like making a good stock. What does your writing studio look like?

Todd Medema (18:02.166)
It is literally just a laptop. I have a MacBook that I take with me everywhere and, uh, you know, I try to write like 15 minutes a day, at least sometimes it's more, but sometimes it's just like, that's all I got. Um, but you know, part of the reason that I decided to, to write instead of a different creative endeavor is how accessible it is. Like really with just a laptop or even a pen and paper, like you can do incredible storytelling.

Lee Schneider (18:31.956)
Noise canceling headphones are the best thing in the world. Yeah, depending on where you are. Yeah, I often work wherever I move around a lot and I work on a laptop or a pen and pencil or a digital tablet or an iPad or I dictate. Doesn't really matter, but it all goes into one single place. But I do need noise canceling headphones a lot of the time, depending on where I am.

Todd Medema (18:35.796)
Noise cancelling headphones, yes.

Todd Medema (18:59.348)
Yeah. And I do use this software called Obsidian, that's available on all platforms, but it's a really powerful note taking thing. It's funny because I use it at work to keep track of like meetings and products and all these things. But then I also use it to write the book because you can connect ideas. And so, you know, I'd like be writing the book and be like, but like, what if like Patty actually did this instead? And then you could like very easily look up like all the places in the book that you've referenced Patty.

Lee Schneider (19:04.717)
Yes.

Todd Medema (19:28.79)
And so it just made it very easy to kind of like manage this mash of ideas.

Lee Schneider (19:29.815)
Yeah.

Yeah, I use Obsidian for most everything. I use Scrivener for long form, but Obsidian, I love that spidery map that it makes it of my ideas. It makes it look like I'm really getting somewhere. You know, it's like, all these, all these things are connected. That's pretty impressive. But I do like. No, I do like that it also just as a plain text version of everything that I can just find.

Todd Medema (19:50.602)
Yeah, it's one of those moments. Okay.

Lee Schneider (20:01.538)
You know, there's nothing proprietary about the material. doesn't take it away from me like other softwares sometimes do.

Todd Medema (20:10.39)
Yeah, the fact that it's free and open source is amazing to me. And it's one of those moments where like, oh wait, software does actually give me superpowers. Like to attempt to do this, I don't know, in Microsoft Word or with pen and paper and you're like trying to keep track of it, it would just be so hard to do. So it's one of those really cool moments where like, hey, technology does actually make my life better.

Lee Schneider (20:20.237)
Yeah.

Lee Schneider (20:35.788)
That's right. Now, I've told this story on the podcast before, but a few years ago, I bought an old manual typewriter thinking, you know, this is going to be great. You know, I'm going to write these stories. I put it on the kitchen table. It really loud and clacky. I loved everything about it. And about an hour in, I realized this is insane. Like there is no way that I'm going to write anything long form and have to retype the pages. You know, it was was fun and it was beautiful. And I liked the way it looked and everything about it except the actual workflow was a nightmare. So yeah, I'm become a big fan of software for that.

Todd Medema (21:16.31)
Sounds like it could serve as a good, inspiring icon in your life. Like you see the typewriter and you think, like yes I should write today, but yeah, the tools make a big difference.

Lee Schneider (21:23.021)
Yes.

I do like the sound, just to go down this rabbit hole one beat further, I do like the sound of typewriters. So sometimes I will play a loop of typewriter sounds just kind of in the background, you know, like I'm in an old time newsroom or something, or I'm working with other people and I, that can help spur me on. It's like, wow, those, that guy's typing really fast, you know, so I have to type fast too. But anyway, this seems like a good.

Todd Medema (21:52.822)
Do you know the idea of affordances? It's like how technology is exposed to us. Like, you know, Apple used to make everything look super realistic, like skeuomorphic design, like your calendar looks like a paper. But it makes me think of with electric cars, one of the people's complaints is that they're too quiet. You know, some people really like the sound of like a big gas motor.

Lee Schneider (21:56.513)
No.

Todd Medema (22:18.634)
And I just think to myself, imagine how many more people would adopt this new technology if you could make your Tesla sound like a Porsche in one click, you know?

Lee Schneider (22:28.002)
Probably. Yeah, we have an Audi plug-in hybrid and I've read where they spent a lot of time on that sound, the, you know, not only the backup sound, but like the engine note. it's so specific that I can be running and look up and see another Audi and, you know, I'll recognize that engine note, just like it's a Porsche engine note or something like that.

Todd Medema (22:56.916)
Yeah, it's one of the just fascinating moments of how we engage with technology every day, but we don't really think about it. Like, how does the car sound? Yeah.

Lee Schneider (22:57.838)
It's weird.

Lee Schneider (23:05.1)
Yeah, right, exactly. We could go forever on this manual keyboards and mechanical keyboards and loud keyboards and soft keyboards. I do all those things. I wanted to ask you a wide angle question about the state of science fiction and fantasy writing and publishing today. Where do you think things are at?

Todd Medema (23:14.358)
Mm-hmm.

Todd Medema (23:30.358)
You know, on one hand, I think it's probably the hardest it's ever been to publish a book. Because anyone can do it. There's more software tools than ever, AI assistants, you can self-publish on Amazon. Like, really, anyone can publish a book. And on one hand, that makes it harder, because you have more competition. But on the other hand, that's pretty amazing and powerful and liberating.

that you or I could write a book. And I don't think even 20 or 30 years ago it would have been like, oh, you have to send in a typewriter manuscript to one of the big publishers. And now it's like anyone can do it. And so I think that's exciting.

Lee Schneider (24:19.308)
Yeah, definitely.

It makes the field broader, but at the same time, I take the view that writing is wonderful. It's soul nourishing. Everyone, if they can do it, should do it or should at least give it a try. And it beats standing on the corner and handing out a mimeograph sheet or a Xerox or something. These methods of distribution, compromised as they are at times, are really valuable. They really help people.

Todd Medema (24:48.468)
Yeah, and that's a good point too. think you should always first and foremost write for yourself. And then if you decide to publish it and share it, that's amazing too. But really, the reason to start writing is because there's something that you want to get down on paper.

Lee Schneider (25:06.702)
Right.

Right. Well, that's the my rationale, too, for not using any kind of AI for creative writing. I have used it for marketing writing and other stuff. But creative writing is has a different purpose and it's meant to look inside. I don't want to rob myself of that moment of the struggle sometimes and the joy and all the stuff that comes with trying to work out a scene between made up people is I

some time every day doing that, as do you, and there's something that we're getting out of it as humans as well as what we might give to others when we put it out there.

Todd Medema (25:47.018)
Yeah, and I intentionally did not use AI in any of the finished, like nothing in the book is done by AI. There's like a kind of solar punk like debate about like AI as an ethical technology, but also to your point, like you as a writer are writing because you enjoy writing and want that experience and it kind of, what's the point of writing if you're just going to have AI do it?

Lee Schneider (26:11.884)
Yeah, I didn't do the point. So what are you working on now?

Todd Medema (26:16.35)
Yeah, so next up immediately I am working on a solar punk anthology called Solar Punk Pen Pals. It spawned out of this fun exercise I developed with an artist where you write letters back and forth to each other as imagined characters in a solar punk future. And we just saw our friends come up with these like amazing stories and we're like, we should write, we should have an anthology of all of these like letters. So that

That exercise is available to anyone free at solarpunkpenpals.com. And then I think longer term I am looking at writing a sequel to the book. There's just so much I want to talk about and so much I discovered in researching this book that I just couldn't fit into a heist. So long term, there's a sequel coming.

Lee Schneider (27:06.24)
Right, that sounds great. Where can people find out more about you and the projects?

Todd Medema (27:11.402)
Yeah, so you can learn more about myself and the book at HowToSurfAHurricane.com

Lee Schneider (27:18.36)
Great. Well, it's been a real pleasure having you on the podcast. Thanks for talking to me today, and I hope people will pick up how to surf a hurricane.

Todd Medema (27:28.48)
Thank you so much for having me, Lee.