The Captain Polo Climate Academy

Show Transcript

The Captain Polo Climate Academy

[00:00:00]

[00:00:06]

[00:00:20]

[00:00:24]

[00:00:24] bob_gatty: Alan Hess is a climate biologist living in Ecuador, and he's now focusing much of his work on educating young people about climate change. A writer and illustrator. Alan's creation, Captain Polo is working to preserve the future of our earth for our youth, The generations who will be increasingly impacted by climate change for years to come.

[00:00:48] But first some housekeeping. Don't forget to follow lean to the left@podcastsdotleantotheleft.net. And you can reach me at Bob and at Lean to the left dot net. You [00:01:00] can also follow us on social media, Facebook at the Lean to the left podcast, Twitter at lean to the left one. 

[00:01:07] YouTube at not fake news and Instagram at Bob Gatty underscore lean to the left. 

[00:01:14] bob_gatty: If you take a minute to give us a review, that would be great. There are lots of podcasts links on our webpage. Podcasts dot lean to the left.net. Where you'll also find our upcoming interview schedule and links to all of our podcasts. Meanwhile special, thanks to the Ramminger group for sponsoring this episode and for providing the music track. The Ramminger group provides content and marketing consulting services to responsible businesses and nonprofits. Let them help tell your story. Visit Ramminger group.com. Now. Onto the show. 

[00:01:49]

[00:01:49]

[00:01:49] bob_gatty: Captain Polo is a polar bear that was introduced in novels, written and illustrated by Allen and aimed at middle school kids. Now he's developed a [00:02:00] school projects approach under his Captain Polo Climate Academy brand. The Captain Polo's Climate Academy creates resources and projects to help children and adults learn about the climate crisis and what needs to be done about it.

[00:02:16] Captain Polo was not just any old polar bear. He can speak most human languages for one thing, but mostly he's worried about the Arctic, his native habitat, which is melting twice as fast as anywhere else because of global warming caused by humans. So Captain Polo was on a mission . He wants to keep on learning more about climate change and possible solutions, and he means to pass everything he learns onto as many people as possible, as quickly as possible.

[00:02:49] That's why Allen is here today. Welcome a to the Lean to the Left podcast.

[00:02:55] Alan Hesse: Thank you so much, Bob. That was a great intro of Captain Polo.[00:03:00]

[00:03:00] bob_gatty: You, you can hire me to write your intros for you. From now on I come. I come cheap Hey, what are you doing in Ecuador? Anyway? Why are you there?

[00:03:11] Alan Hesse: It's for personal reasons. My wife is from Ecuador and we moved back recently. It's also because I've been in the region. I've been in Latin America for 30 years now. That's a long story for another time, but it all started with an expedition to the Amazon when I was a recent graduate to 30 years ago.

[00:03:26] And I basically stayed in the region. Because as a conservationist there's so much biodiversity here and there's so much work to be done. So yeah, so one thing led to another and I basically moved around the region quite a few times, lived in various countries here and now I'm in Ecuador.

[00:03:40] Yeah.

[00:03:41] bob_gatty: Got it. I got it. It's appropriate that we're talking about climate change today because you guys listening, you may hear some thunder. We're having a, looks like a thunderstorm moving in. I'm in South Carolina and it's hot and sticky out there, and. And getting cloudy.

[00:03:57] So if you guys hear thunder, it's just because [00:04:00] we're talking about climate change. That's the only reason . , tell us a little bit, Alan, about Captain Polo's Climate Academy and how it works.

[00:04:07] Alan Hesse: As you said very well, Bob, Captain Polo is this fictional character that I, that comes from the graphic novels of which there are four now, by the way. And I decided to go beyond just the books, I decided to actually create this brand. This is very recent. This is from two months ago.

[00:04:22] bob_gatty: Okay.

[00:04:22] Alan Hesse: I created the brand of the Captain Polo Climate Academy, because I started getting into a more project based approach. With schools and with educators, formal educators. And I realized that the books themselves are a product. But what I need to do is come more with a more strategic kind of project based offer.

[00:04:41] And and it just made sense to create this brand using the character which gives what I'm offering a particular flavor. Because the good news is that there are more and more resources now, especially in the US and in Canada for climate education. And a lot of them are open source and they managed by [00:05:00] institutes or educational organizations who have funding. More and more funding is getting freed up now for climate education, which is great news. So a lot of, a lot more institutes and organizations are offering. Open source resources. This's the space, that's the space I'm operating in. And, but I needed to give it a definite flavor. And so my particular added value is to bring in this emotionally significant character.

[00:05:27] Captain Polo the Bear, which given that the final end user is a child between the age of the six and 13 to have a bear as a mascot kind of backing all these resources and all these projects to have the character appear in cartoon form, whether it's animated or whether it's a static cartoon, in all the material.

[00:05:49] Kind of accompany the learning. I think that's a very powerful presence. And so that's what the academy is about. It brings in the [00:06:00] character to the materials, makes them unique

[00:06:01] bob_gatty: Okay. Now speaking of the character you have you have Captain Polo with you, don't you?

[00:06:06] Alan Hesse: Yeah, I do. He's right here. This

[00:06:08] bob_gatty: Can I see him?

[00:06:09] Alan Hesse: his physical form. And as I was saying to you offline Bob this for those who are not seeing the video, this stuffed toy version of Captain Polo complete with his hat, he's a, he's our captain, the seas, so he has a captain's cap.

[00:06:24] And that's a very powerful asset to have when I'm visiting. When talking to younger kids,

[00:06:30] bob_gatty: Okay. So what do you do? What do you do when you're visiting schools and you're doing

[00:06:34] Alan Hesse: I Yeah, I, he's like a puppet. I make him interact with myself and with the class. He doesn't speak, he doesn't speak. He speaks through me by whispering in my ear.

[00:06:43] And that creates a sense of mystery and a sense of intimacy with the classroom. I've noticed this only works for little kids, right? Of course.

[00:06:51] bob_gatty: So I lied when I said that he speaks all these different languages 

[00:06:55] Alan Hesse: No, you did not lie. That he does. He does. But only in the books. [00:07:00]Only in the books.

[00:07:03] bob_gatty: Okay, I got it. All right. So why is it important to teach kids about all these issues involving climate?

[00:07:10] Alan Hesse: Yeah. For one thing, the subject is constantly in the news today, and there is a lot of anxiety going around, especially among young people. This is documented, there's been studies on it. It's academically documented. Now, there is an increasing level of anxiety among young people for the future that they behold.

[00:07:29] So they need to know what's going on. And I say that there's never, it's never too young an age to begin. The younger you start, the more you unpack the issue. And the more the children understand, what is real and what is not real, what is misinformation and what is accurate information, and also the fact that they can be agents of change, that it gives them, it empowers.

[00:07:51] So it's very important to teach climate to children today because they are anxious and they need to know, and they also need to know that [00:08:00] there are solutions and that they can be part of those solutions. That's one reason. The other reason is that their decision makers of tomorrow, the kids today are the decision makers.

[00:08:08] They're the voting adults of tomorrow, and they influence their parents today. And their parents today are the voting public of today. We need action right now this is what Greta Thunberg is. Message is core. Her core message to youth and to the well, to the decision makers, the adult decision makers is we don't have time.

[00:08:28] And that is true. And so it's important to teach climate for those two reasons. To empower the next generation have them influence their, the current generation and and address the anxiety, which is becoming a real public problem.

[00:08:42] bob_gatty: Alan, do you in, in, in your work with the kids, do you go to classes, you're invited in to speak to the kids in a class or how does that work? Yeah 

[00:08:53] Alan Hesse: yeah, as I'm in Ecuador where this subject isn't really in the mainstream awareness. So I have to reach out to schools here. [00:09:00] And I'm just beginning. I'm just beginning. And I've had some interventions in one particular in couple of schools, and that's set to, that's set to develop further, but remotely as well.

[00:09:11] There's interest. And of course Covid has taught us all that. There's a lot you can do over Zoom, right?

[00:09:16] bob_gatty: Yeah, for

[00:09:17] Alan Hesse: it's not the same of course, it's not the same. Holding the attention of a classroom over Zoom is hard.

[00:09:23] But it's certainly something I'm interested in developing further

[00:09:26] bob_gatty: Okay,

[00:09:28] Alan Hesse: it's really good if it can be in presence.

[00:09:30] Of course, that's so much better cuz I can bring in my Captain Polo in the physical form and they can cuddle him and, Throw 'em around if they want , which they have done, by the way.

[00:09:41] bob_gatty: That sounds pretty good.

[00:09:42] Alan Hesse: Yeah. It's fun. You.

[00:09:44] bob_gatty: Yeah. So you get a pretty good reception when you get to go to speak to the kids, I imagine 

[00:09:49] Alan Hesse: yeah. You come in with a cartoon character and a presentation, which is very interactive. There's a lot of games and energizers, and then there's the physical version of the character. [00:10:00] He's cuddly, he's a bear. The kids are gonna love it, and they always do. They always do you know?

[00:10:05] bob_gatty: yeah. Okay. So do you plan to expand this beyond Ecuador? You said that something you can do online. 

[00:10:12] Alan Hesse: Yeah, I have a couple of projects I'm piloting here because surely because I live here, so it's easier for me to get to the schools physically. But those projects, I'm gonna, I wanna roll them out to the region. They're in Spanish at the moment and in English, so there's bilingual. A lot of schools here are bilingual schools, so you know, the IB and other kind of a lot of them, some of them have American curriculum, some of them are British curriculum.

[00:10:36] Some of them are just international. But I also wanna, I want to hit the world and there's no reason why this today, as I said, just now, everything is remote. There's so much you can do that's remote. So yeah.

[00:10:49] bob_gatty: good example. You're in Ecuador right now. I'm in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

[00:10:54] Alan Hesse: That's right.

[00:10:55] bob_gatty: and here we are. Absolutely.

[00:10:58] Alan Hesse: Yep.

[00:10:59] bob_gatty: [00:11:00] what should our listeners who are concerned about climate change do and how can they help your efforts? If there's any way that they can 

[00:11:07] Alan Hesse: okay, so that's, So what they should do is first and foremost, inform themselves as much as possible. There's a lot of misinformation with climate change. It's still a very contentious subject. There's a lot of misinformation, some of which is voluntary misinformation from powerful lobbying groups.

[00:11:25] So it's very important to untangle the fact from fiction. So informing yourself is really the first thing to. And this is me speaking by the way, these are now established guidelines from creditable sources, and they all agree. First, inform yourself, invest in your mind. That, also dispels the sense of anxiety and hopelessness, which many of us can feel sometimes.

[00:11:48] So that's the first step. And then the other one, Is, don't try and do it alone. If you're gonna do something, it's always good to try and join up with others. There are many communities now [00:12:00] in the US in so many states now there are growing communities of whether they're activists, outright activists, or just concerned citizens with a more, slightly more gentle touch.

[00:12:12] There's a lot you can do in groups. And of course, individually, that's up to every person. Whether you want to install solar panels, when you wanna have a heat pump, whether you want to trade in your gas car for a ev, that's all the decisions that are individual.

[00:12:27] bob_gatty: Right.

[00:12:28] Alan Hesse: I personally don't believe in preaching to anybody.

[00:12:30] I believe in giving them information so that everyone makes their own choices, the way they see fit.

[00:12:35] bob_gatty: Okay.

[00:12:36] Alan Hesse: And what was the second question? Bob.

[00:12:38] bob_gatty: The second question was, how can they help your efforts?

[00:12:42] Alan Hesse: Oh I'm looking for partnerships. I'm looking for collaboration and synergy, so I would love to have people reach out. So that I can learn about what they're doing and see if there's a way of making ends meet with them and joining forces. [00:13:00] It's all about networking. I would, people could really help me if they help me gain more exposure for what I'm doing and get me entry points into their own communities or networks so that I can bring my offer to that community or that network and hopefully get something going. That would be, because my main problem is that I'm very isolated and so I'm looking to change that.

[00:13:28] bob_gatty: Okay.

[00:13:29] Alan Hesse: Yeah.

[00:13:30] bob_gatty: Where'd you get the idea for Captain Polo to begin with?

[00:13:33] Alan Hesse: I decided to create the first book several years ago, and I was thinking about a character, what should I use?

[00:13:40] bob_gatty: All right.

[00:13:41] Alan Hesse: And someone, people gave me some ideas, but then I started thinking it needs to be an animal.

[00:13:45] bob_gatty: care.

[00:13:46] Alan Hesse: And it needs to be an animal that I can draw easily. And so that ruled out horses so I thought a nice, chunky, simple bear would be good. And then I found out about the Arctic that's melting twice as fast as [00:14:00] anywhere else. And I thought what's an animal that lives in the Arctic that everyone knows about? Of course, the polar bear, Apex predator, he's a bear. People love bears.

[00:14:10] bob_gatty: People People love polo bears,

[00:14:12] Alan Hesse: People love polar bears. I've never seen one in real life except in the zoo, but they're pretty awesome. They're pretty awesome animals and top predators. And so I thought, wouldn't it be great to have a charismatic polar bear? And so that's how I decided.

[00:14:28] bob_gatty: Okay. I can see him sitting behind you. He's keeping an eye on you. He's pretty friendly.

[00:14:35] Alan Hesse: He has a character in the books. He has a character. He's very innocent and naive at first, but the character evolves through the books and he becomes more worldly wise, and he has very short temper and is very impatient. Yeah, he can't stand people who just don't get it or choose not to get it.

[00:14:58] He just literally,

[00:14:59] bob_gatty: [00:15:00] anybody, 

[00:15:00] Alan Hesse: I won't mention any names, but there was someone in the recent US administration who comes to mind and so that kind of person, he in the books, he meets them and he will literally bash them into the ground.

[00:15:14] bob_gatty: I love it.

[00:15:15] Alan Hesse: Yeah, because he is a wild animal. He has a, he's a wild animal.

[00:15:18] He is very strong,

[00:15:19] bob_gatty: That's right.

[00:15:20] Alan Hesse: he love s people, he empathizes, especially with climate victims. People from the global south who are refuse, who are forced to migrate, for example, because the rising sea levels, for example, he's very empathetic with them and will seek to help them, but others who just don't care or. Purposely choose to ignore the issue. He has no patience. So he does have a character. Yeah, he is a better, after all, a wild animal.

[00:15:48] bob_gatty: Okay. All right. Now I understand that Captain Polo has a has a friend, I don't know if it's a girlfriend, but it's a penguin.

[00:15:57] Alan Hesse: It's a penguin.

[00:15:59] bob_gatty: It's in a video, [00:16:00] right?

[00:16:00] Alan Hesse: Yeah. Penguin is a character. It's a male character

[00:16:03] bob_gatty: Oh, okay.

[00:16:04] Alan Hesse: They meet at the end of book one, book three, sorry. When Polo is captured by London Zoo from some mistake. And he escapes from the zoo, but on the way out he yeah, he escapes from the zoo, but he sees he's drawn, his attention is drawn to penguin behind bars.

[00:16:23] And the penguin says, Hey man, you. Get me outta here. so he does. So he breaks the penguin out to the zoo and then he's stuck with him. Basically. He's stuck with him. He doesn't want to have the penguin, but the penguin is just, he's just stuck with him. He can't get rid of him. So that's what happens in the following book.

[00:16:41] There's a whole, there's a whole story that unfolds

[00:16:44] bob_gatty: you dreamed all this

[00:16:45] Alan Hesse: of the

[00:16:46] bob_gatty: You dreamed this up?

[00:16:47] Alan Hesse: Yeah. Yes, of course. All this is the fiction, the fun part, the storytelling part which has to blend with all the non-fiction educational stuff, which is hard truth. [00:17:00] Hard truth, but also a lot about solutions.

[00:17:02] And the science, it's all based on research and science based.

[00:17:06] Have to mix these two things together to make the book interesting, but also educational.

[00:17:10] bob_gatty: Yeah. , you're a climate biologist, so what are these hard truths that you're talking about?

[00:17:16] Alan Hesse: To be accurate. Bob I'm a conservation biologist, not a climate biologist.

[00:17:20] bob_gatty: so sorry.

[00:17:21] Alan Hesse: That's okay. But the two are very related. These days, especially these days the hard truths is that global warming is unquestionably in progress. And those of us who are exposed to annual forest fires drought, flood heat waves as the case in Europe recently.

[00:17:38] All of these extreme weather events are getting more frequent and getting more intense hurricanes that hit you guys off the eastern seaboard or the US or the Gulf of Mexico. As ocean temperatures warm up, that creates all kinds of effect in the atmosphere that intensified these storms.

[00:17:56] And so these are events that are very [00:18:00] costly in property damage in countries like the US. But in most of the rest of the world, it's not only about property, it's about lives. Countries like Haiti, for example, are not prepared in terms of infrastructure to withstand such events.

[00:18:15] And so there's lots of life and of course, infrastructure is damaged in such countries. That also has a domino effect on all the health system, all the sanitary system is upset and all the sea water gets into the, to the fresh water, and then there's no more access to drinking water.

[00:18:32] And then there's no more crops because they all die because of the flooding or because it's a drought. And so there's a whole cascading series of events that one, one way or the other come back to us

[00:18:43] And affect us no matter where we are.

[00:18:45] bob_gatty: Yeah.

[00:18:46] Alan Hesse: It's a fact. But as I say in my books, there are a lot of things you can do about it.

[00:18:51] There are a lot of solutions, technology being one of them. And people are working around the clock to solve these problems. And I personally [00:19:00] am optimistic. I think that humans have survived. All these thousands of years by adapting

[00:19:07] bob_gatty: Yeah.

[00:19:08] Alan Hesse: and by working together.

[00:19:10] bob_gatty: Yeah,

[00:19:10] Alan Hesse: And when we work together and adapt we get through.

[00:19:13] And so it's about us getting through now but also making sure the rest of life on Earth gets through. And that's a challenge.

[00:19:20] bob_gatty: it is a challenge and as I sit here in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, it's a community that is growing by leaps and bounds. Every place you look the Beautiful pine trees are being ripped out of the ground, replaced with condos and and houses and strip centers. And it makes me sick every time I go past one of these projects.

[00:19:45] And but it's happening all over the place. At least all over the place, all over this area. And as my wife always says as we drive past a sign for sale where the pine trees are, and [00:20:00] you know that what's gonna happen, there will be more houses and more and more condos and more strip centers.

[00:20:08] You know that. And she always says, Don't they understand what they're doing?

[00:20:13] Alan Hesse: doing

[00:20:14] bob_gatty: Those trees were important to the air we breathe.

[00:20:17] Alan Hesse: do.

[00:20:18] bob_gatty: And that's a very simple statement, but is so powerful

[00:20:22] Alan Hesse: so powerful. Oh, yeah.

[00:20:24] bob_gatty: and they don't understand, and I don't understand why that is.

[00:20:28] Alan Hesse: Yeah. That's what I'm, Those are the serious issues.

[00:20:31] bob_gatty: Yep.

[00:20:32] Alan Hesse: And so the sooner we get tomorrow's adults thinking about this hardwired where respect for nature is just hardwired into who they are, like you and me,

[00:20:45] bob_gatty: Yes.

[00:20:46] Alan Hesse: because not everyone's like you and me, if the whole generation grows up hardwired with that, then I think we take a shortcut and really avoid a lot of future problems.

[00:20:56] bob_gatty: I'm like you. I see some hope with this younger generation that's coming up. [00:21:00] People, they are concerned. At least many of them are concerned and stepping up. I have a a granddaughter who is right now going to grad school to become a Environmental scientist and she wants to, and also she wants to be a environmental attorney.

[00:21:18] Alan Hesse: Oh wow.

[00:21:19] bob_gatty: she wants to fight. To fight and,

[00:21:21] Alan Hesse: Great.

[00:21:22] That's it. That's the other answer to the earlier question you had about what can people do is I think a lot of people can use what they're good at, like what they, what is it that they do anyway in life

[00:21:34] bob_gatty: Captain Polo's good

[00:21:35] Alan Hesse: give it a purpose,

[00:21:36] bob_gatty: Captain Polo's. Good at writing blogs, right?

[00:21:39] Alan Hesse: Yeah he writes blogs. He writes blogs and and a couple of spelling mistakes there, I have to correct for him.

[00:21:46] But apart from that he loves writing

[00:21:48] bob_gatty: yeah. What's he right about? What's he right about?

[00:21:51] Alan Hesse: He writes about climate, he writes about, he's very worried about

[00:21:56] bob_gatty: Doesn't he write about different countries he's visited and that

[00:21:59] Alan Hesse: [00:22:00] Oh, he does. He does. He does. He's written about an experience he had in Nepal. He's written about an experience he had in Malawi. He's written about, these are actual projects in those countries where the people who I partnered with took their own versions of Captain Polo.

[00:22:15] Cuddly toys with them in their suitcase and they put him on on the infrastructure that they were documenting as climate solutions. And then took pictures, So he. Yeah, so the, he's been around

[00:22:29] bob_gatty: That's good. Now, What are Captain Polo's top climate change actions that he thinks should happen.

[00:22:36] Alan Hesse: Oh let me see. One is avoiding fossil fuels as much as possible, which means public transport, use a bicycle, walk.

[00:22:44] bob_gatty: Right.

[00:22:44] Alan Hesse: Electric vehicles are the future. That's an interesting one, but there are simpler and cheaper and more immediate solutions for those I've just stated with in the terms of transport.

[00:22:53] What your diet has a big one. The, that 24% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the. [00:23:00] Agriculture, forestry and food industries.

[00:23:02] bob_gatty: Yeah 

[00:23:03] Alan Hesse: the way we consume food I is a massive individual behavior, behavioral change that we can make. And the fact that's one of my projects here that I'm piloting Ecuador about food systems.

[00:23:14] And then what else does Pi polo say? He's all about making the right choices when you are voting.

[00:23:20] bob_gatty: there you go.

[00:23:21] Alan Hesse: is for adults. Adults who are voting for their leaders. Make sure you know that you know those leaders as agenda for environment and climate.

[00:23:30] bob_gatty: yep.

[00:23:30] Alan Hesse: Reuse the usual stuff like reuse, repair, recycle but basically if you were to ask Captain Polo, give me one solution in one line, he would say, Just stop consuming so much stuff.

[00:23:42] bob_gatty: Yeah.

[00:23:43] Alan Hesse: That's what he would say. Stop. Consuming so much because at the bottom line of it all, it's all about our consumption of resources.

[00:23:53] The bottom line

[00:23:53] bob_gatty: you mentioned agriculture and food. Now I understand from my inside sources that [00:24:00] Captain Polo has a cookbook of climate friendly recipes, right? Huh?

[00:24:07] Alan Hesse: yeah. That's a project in the making.

[00:24:09] bob_gatty: Oh, it's in the

[00:24:10] Alan Hesse: a project in the making. It's linked to a whole project of analysis where the students analyze, they, they research using specially made materials that I have. They use like keys, decision keys to research, where their ingredients come from, how they produce, how much water they use.

[00:24:28] What's the packaging like and how healthy they are. And they use a scoring system to score recipes that they come up with in teams. And they make them as sustainable as possible. And then the event, the final event of that project is a food fair, Captain Polo's, climate friendly food fair, where the teams will, it's like an Iron Chef event.

[00:24:48] There'll be a jury and the jury will judge each dish based on its gastronomy pesentation, but also the analysis that the team presents formally [00:25:00] in terms of how they researched their ingredients in terms of those criteria, like how the ingredients were produced, where they come from, blah, blah, blah.

[00:25:09] And the winning team gets a trophy and it's a school event.

[00:25:13] bob_gatty: Okay.

[00:25:14] Alan Hesse: That's the project. It's very exciting because it's inclusive. I've had it, I've had special needs kids take part in this with great success. It's very, it's a lot of fun. It's student centered. It's all that teachers need. Teachers need stuff like this,

[00:25:29] bob_gatty: Oh, that's

[00:25:29] Alan Hesse: on.

[00:25:30] Yeah, hands on. Get your hands dirty, cooking and all this. 

[00:25:34] bob_gatty: You're gonna do it like Facebook Live or anything, so other people can see?

[00:25:39] Alan Hesse: No, that's a good idea. That's actually, I am, I'm not very good at those kind of things, but I'll have to look into it. That's a very good idea.

[00:25:47] bob_gatty: I'm not either, but I know it's possible.

[00:25:49] Alan Hesse: Yeah. I need to rope in a 15 year

[00:25:52] bob_gatty: That's right. And when you find them, send them my way, [00:26:00] Okay. Hey, where could people find your books and resources and find out more about the Captain Polo Climate Academy?

[00:26:07] Alan Hesse: It's basically my website is the one stop shop. The books are everywhere, including online retail stores and all this. But the best place is my website. You can get all the links and my website is alan hessey.com. So that's a l a n. H e wse.com, again, A L A N H E SS e.com.

[00:26:29] bob_gatty: Okay, so your last name is pronounced, I'm

[00:26:31] Alan Hesse: Yeah. No, go

[00:26:33] bob_gatty: is pronounced Hessey, not hes.

[00:26:35] Alan Hesse: Yeah, he se has this Doesn't matter really.

[00:26:38] bob_gatty: Oh, okay.

[00:26:39] Alan Hesse: not bothered.

[00:26:39] bob_gatty: Cause I screwed it up in the intro.

[00:26:42] Alan Hesse: Not at all. Not at all. It's a German surname for some reason. I have no idea where that comes from, but you can pronounce it both ways. It's not a problem.

[00:26:50] bob_gatty: All right. It's been great talking to you

[00:26:52] Alan Hesse: Oh, likewise, Bob.

[00:26:53] bob_gatty: I enjoyed it very much and I think you've got a real winner here with captain Polo and [00:27:00] I'm interested to know how the situation with the penguin 

[00:27:03] Alan Hesse: turns out.

[00:27:03] Oh yes. I tell you that the latest news is that they are on their way to the South Pole.

[00:27:09] bob_gatty: Oh, okay.

[00:27:10] Alan Hesse: because in the book five, which I'm working on called Captain Polo in Brazil, it takes place in Brazil cuz Brazil's on the way from the north to the South Poles by the Atlantic Ocean.

[00:27:22] And what happened in book fours is a spoiler alert Penguin. It becomes a stowaway on Captain Polo's boat because Captain Polo is running out of food in the Arctic, which by the way, is a real problem for polar bears in the Arctic because of the melting ice. They can't hunt. So Captain Polo, like his peers go south to look for food, except he has a boat to do it in cuz he's Captain bolo.

[00:27:48] And the penguin hides under a tarpaulin on the And then only appears when Captain Polo is stuck for wind off the coast of West Africa.

[00:27:59] bob_gatty: [00:28:00] Okay.

[00:28:00] Alan Hesse: Then Penguin appears, and by that time it's too late to turn back. So Penguin, he's always wanted to go back to his home, which is the Antarctic, not the Arctic.

[00:28:10] And Polo is always You know what? Forget it. I saved you from a zoo. I don't have time to take you to the Antarctic. What am I gonna do in the Antarctic? And so there's always been that tension. And in that fourth book, it's about Penguin kinda fooling Polo into taking him. And Book five continues from there.

[00:28:29] that right now they're somewhere in Brazil hacking through Jungle Yeah.

[00:28:35] bob_gatty: You have quite an imagination, my friend 

[00:28:38] Alan Hesse: I need to, Otherwise the kids are not gonna pick up the book.

[00:28:41] bob_gatty: so that's true.

[00:28:42] Alan Hesse: It's 80% entertainment and 20% education.

[00:28:46] bob_gatty: that's okay. But the 20% is really important.

[00:28:49] Alan Hesse: Yes.

[00:28:50] bob_gatty: All right. I thank you for sharing that with us. Alan, I really talking with you.

[00:28:55] Alan Hesse: Thank you, Bob, for having me on the show, and I hope your listeners enjoy it [00:29:00] and it'd be great if anyone got in touch.

[00:29:01] bob_gatty: Thanks guys for listening. I hope you enjoyed this podcast and you'll come back on a regular basis and check out our interviews with guests on topics that I hope you find interesting, entertaining and enlightening. Our episodes stream twice weekly on Mondays and Thursdays. 

[00:29:19] Let your friends know about this podcast and take a minute to subscribe. Just go to podcast dot Lean to the left.net to subscribe, check out the upcoming interview And listen to all of our episodes. You can also support this podcast by clicking on the donate tab at the top of the page. And you'll find links there to buy me a cup of coffee and also PayPal. 

[00:29:43] And follow us on social media. Facebook at the lean to the left podcast. Twitter at lean to the left one. Instagram at Bob Gatty underscore lean to the left and YouTube. At not fake news. And don't forget to [00:30:00] visit our block site. Lean to the left.net. where you'll find commentary on the news by some excellent writers with progressive perspectives on a whole range of topics. You can sign up as a member there. And of course it's all free. Meanwhile special thanks to the Ramminger group for sponsoring this episode. And for providing the music track. The Ramminger group provides content and marketing consulting services. 

[00:30:28] To responsible businesses and non-profits. Let them help tell your story. Visit Ramminger Group.com. Now, this is Bob Gaddy signing off for Lean to the Left. Thanks for sharing your time with us.