Dr Christos Miliotis: A Blueprint for Cooling Our Blue Planet Introduction
Well, today we are going to be exploring climate change. We hear so many, so much bad news, so many prophets of doom. It’s quite depressing, actually, when you sit and listen to it. And yet there are solutions out there. And it’s interesting always to hear those. And I think a positive story is an important one.
And my guest today, I welcome back Dr Christos Miliotis. He’s a medical practitioner and he describes himself as an ecopreneur. Now, I enjoyed talking to Christos because he brings positive can-do optimistic, multi-disciplinary approaches to tackling climate change and this podcast always wants to remind ourselves, and I think we do need to remind ourselves regularly that a holistic approach to life, to the health of both the individual and planet. It’s the only way to realistically be looking at things. A holistic context.
It was the legendary Allan Savory, a guest on an earlier podcast says, is what should sit above and be the foundation of every decision we make, whether we are individuals, a community, a company, a country, or a globe.
The holistic context is what should be the overriding principle. Christos draws on fields of microbiology, mycology, which is about funguses, botany, ecology, social science, hydrology, the science of the water cycle, climatology, plant physiology, nutrition, and plants-soil interactions as a way of also understanding and mimicking nature. We have to understand nature in its integrated whole.
You know, I’ve introduced you to many integrative practitioners psychologists, gastroenterologists, cardiologists, doctors, but an integrated approach to life is a really worthwhile thing to be doing and a message that we constantly focus on. The problem with not just our health care, all climate policy, all politics, for that matter, is our approach tends to be very reductionist.
I have A therefore I will B. Ignoring that at least all the other elements o letters of the alphabet represent other things we need or should take into account. We try to solve problems caused by this reductionist approach to nature and health, for that matter, by being even more reductionist. And it’s not working very well. If human health and planetary health is anything to go by.
Look, Christos goes into a lot of detail and we are sharing screens here. So if you are watching this on YouTube, there are some interesting images that he shares with us. But I do try to describe this for those that are just listening. I hope you enjoyed this conversation I had with Dr Christos Miliotis.
Podcast Transcript
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:00:01] I’d like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land in which I’m recording this podcast, the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation, and pay my respects to their Elders – past, present and emerging.
Hello and welcome to Unstress. My name is Dr Ron Ehrlich. Well, today we are going to be exploring climate change. We hear so many, so much bad news, so many prophets of doom. It’s quite depressing, actually, when you sit and listen to it. And yet there are solutions out there. And it’s interesting always to hear those. And I think a positive story is an important one.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:00:45] And my guest today, I welcome back Dr Christos Miliotis. He’s a medical practitioner and he describes himself as an ecopreneur. Now, I enjoyed talking to Christos because he brings positive can-do optimistic, multi-disciplinary approaches to tackling climate change and this podcast always wants to remind ourselves, and I think we do need to remind ourselves regularly that a holistic approach to life, to the health of both the individual and planet. It’s the only way to realistically be looking at things. A holistic context.
It was the legendary Allan Savory, a guest on an earlier podcast says, is what should sit above and be the foundation of every decision we make, whether we are individuals, a community, a company, a country, or a globe.
The holistic context is what should be the overriding principle. Christos draws on fields of microbiology, mycology, which is about funguses, botany, ecology, social science, hydrology, the science of the water cycle, climatology, plant physiology, nutrition, and plants-soil interactions as a way of also understanding and mimicking nature. We have to understand nature in its integrated whole.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:02:11] You know, I’ve introduced you to many integrative practitioners psychologists, gastroenterologists, cardiologists, doctors, but an integrated approach to life is a really worthwhile thing to be doing and a message that we constantly focus on. The problem with not just our health care, all climate policy, all politics, for that matter, is our approach tends to be very reductionist.
I have A therefore I will B. Ignoring that at least all the other elements o letters of the alphabet represent other things we need or should take into account. We try to solve problems caused by this reductionist approach to nature and health, for that matter, by being even more reductionist. And it’s not working very well. If human health and planetary health is anything to go by.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:03:05] Look, Christos goes into a lot of detail and we are sharing screens here. So if you are watching this on YouTube, there are some interesting images that he shares with us. But I do try to describe this for those that are just listening. I hope you enjoyed this conversation I had with Dr Christos Miliotis.Welcome back. Christos.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:03:31] And, Ron, it’s always a great pleasure, I assure you.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:03:35] Okay, good. Now, Chris. There’s so much we’re going to talk about today. I’ve been looking forward to catching up again. I know this is a passion of yours. And this is saying greenhouse gas emissions are an untapped resource. And I think you also say and I love this, I’m intrigued by this. Would you believe we can make sky diamonds? Please explain.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:03:57] Yes. Well, I like… Being in Australia, I want to turn everything upside down and we need to reframe and reimagine that greenhouse gases are not the enemy, but an untapped resource, a profound untapped resource. And there’s a lot of work in not only just carbon capture and storage, but carbon capture and utilisation. I’m only taking this as a kind of example.
Not that I’m advocating making diamonds out of carbon dioxide, but the reality is there is a company and I don’t have any shares, so there’s no conflict of interest is what they do at 800 degrees centigrade and I’m not sure how many atmospheres pressure can produce sky diamond or diamonds out of CO2, and they’re planning to scale up to produce a thousand carats a month.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:04:54] Wow.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:04:54] So they’re obviously flawless. As you know, natural diamonds have undergone pressure and heat over a period of time to create diamonds. But these are absolutely flawless. Unless you’re a diamond evaluator, you couldn’t tell the difference.
But it acts as an example in a kind of more, you know, glamorous bling type way that we can use these resources. But my work over the last 18 years has gravitated toward bringing greenhouse gases into the soil primarily. Now, obviously, CO2, you can do that via plants, but our microbial inoculate also takes directly CO2 from the atmosphere.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:05:40] And I might have mentioned this example before. Someone told me that they had a ute filled with compost or soil compost, I should think. They weighed in at Newcastle and it had a certain tonnage. They went to Sydney weigh-in stations and it was increased.
Now there were microbes on board the ute trail and they were actually harvesting CO2 from the atmosphere. So if you extend that idea to not only harvesting CO2 via plants and via microbes and fungi, but also methane, you can use what’s called methanol tropes which attract methane and form other compounds which do not form nitrogen and a bioavailable.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:06:27] Similarly well with nitrogen dioxide, which is a significant greenhouse gas. We can’t harvest nitrogen directly by using nitrogen-fixing spores and plants, the legumes in particular. But if we then harvest directly nitrogen from the atmosphere, we’re therefore not using nitrogen fertilisers which can oxidise up to a significant amount.
Can oxidise to form nitrous oxide. So nitrous oxide is a problem because it erodes the greenhouse… The ozone. Thank you. A senior moment there and thank you for bringing what I was just checking wether you’re listening. Interestingly, when you put nitrogen fertiliser in a synthetic form, it can consume for every kilogram of nitrogen fertiliser can consume 12 kilograms of carbon. That’s black gold. And we’re losing it. We’re losing it in many ways and hopefully will come to that. So clearly we can use these greenhouse gases as benefits.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:07:31] I became interested in CO2 utilisation and monetisation because we produced hydrogen from fermenting organic agricultural waste, but a percentage of that is then producing carbon dioxide. We can easily separate that by using membranes because the hydrogen molecule is smaller than the carbon dioxide molecule.
We can compartmentalise them. CO2, we can put that in cement and improve the cement curing process with less water and make it harder. We can use it for beverage drinks, we can use it for sky diamonds, we can use it for building materials. In fact, that’s what I’m working on as a process. I won’t go into the details there.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:08:17] But it’s interesting that we need to re-imagine and monitorize greenhouse gases and sees them as assets. I call it sort of mining in the sky and into greenhouse gases by extracting industrialised farming chemical system, but we can kind of reverse engineer and actually mine these elements from the atmosphere. When I mention the hydrogen project, it’s actually a reverse photosynthesis process.
So instead of, so I won’t go into details there, but we’re reversing even photosynthesis to yield hydrogen. So that’s powerful. And just to finish that off, we’re working with using the residual fibre to make climate-proof buildings which have been already approved for being fire resistant, earthquake resistant, and hurricane resistant.
And this Friday, I’m actually talking to the architect in Malaysia and make it flood-resistant. So it’ll actually float with the rising tide. Obviously, there are limits to all of those things. But we need to be really, you know, use the problem of climate change and solve for our building as well.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:09:31] Yeah. I mean, I think one of the things I like about this thought is that so often the narrative is very negative and doom and gloom. And I’m reminded of I think he’s probably a great mentor to you too, Allan Savory, you know, who said it’s not the resource that’s the problem, it’s how the resource is managed. And, you know, this is all about that sort of holistic context about everything.
So I love the idea of, yes, we have a problem, but let’s find out and let’s turn that into a resource. I know another thing that is very fresh in all of our minds, particularly in Australia, but also in other parts of the world and that of floods. Floods are front and centre now.
And you know, given the megafloods that have been spawned, you know, you touched on this housing, can we build climate change proof house and sequester carbon at the same time? You mentioned that. Can you expand on that a little bit?
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:10:31] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I’ve been working, I was invited to join an enterprise in Malaysia called Hemptech Asia. And I was invited to be their scientific advisor. And I’ve been sort of evaluating or incorporating other technologies to make it what I call the eco powerhouse.
And the what’s that space? The eco powerhouse, we say, is grown by the sun and powered by the sun, literally. So we’re using fast-growing plants which sequester carbon. We then use microbes through fermentation process and the liquid, if I can do a screen share, the liquid is used to regenerate land.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:11:17] Okay. Well, look for out for those that are listening, we will give a good commentary as we go. But this is also on YouTube. And we’re getting a lot of a lot of views on YouTube. So let’s just pause for a second and we’ll share the screen.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:11:34] Yep. Yep. So leave it in this format. I’ll go to the end of the slides, which is really powerful. Some people can’t believe their own eyes, but if you look at that slide, that’s a mining site in China and you can see before it’s desolate. Not only is it desolate, it’s toxic as well. It’s got pesticides, herbicides, the whole bit.
And you wouldn’t it’s very hard to regenerate or revegetate that we took the liquid water from the fermentation to produce hydrogen. And you can see on the left if you go to the left slide, on the left side, you can see how much ground cover there is and the height is up to mid-thigh.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:12:17] So let me just for our listeners say we’re looking at two photos here of the same site.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:12:23] Correct.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:12:24] And on the one side, it is literally just desolate, a mine site, which is completely bare. And you’re saying is toxic. Yes. And on the left-hand side, the same land. We are looking at some very lush growth there.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:12:43] Yes.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:12:43] And so go on, explain to us how that change occurred again.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:12:48] Well, put it in context. It’s not we didn’t do the whole revegetation because thousands of hectares in that mining site. But we took a portion as a revegetation project. And on the left-hand side of the slide, you see, on the extreme left where we use the water after fermentation from two microbes yielding hydrogen, we use that water as a fertiliser or a growth plant stimulant, and it covered 100% of the ground without irrigation and grew to a buck to mid size level.
On the right-hand side, you can see some pipes, some irrigation drip lines. The problem is very scattered vegetarian recover and it’s not as high. Probably middle, middle, lower leg height. So there’s a big difference in that. I do have another slide where you can see a person standing in.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:13:44] Let’s just focus on this because the right-hand side is the photo you’re showing is the desolate landscape. The left-hand side is the revegetated one. But within that left-hand side, it is divided into two. And where you have not done where you’ve just done your utilisation of those hydrogen. And again, what was utilised on that more lush side?
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:14:11] Okay. Well, we use, you know, a feedstock is fibre. We use a few nutrients as well to multiply the microbes. We take that whole slosh that whole liquid residue and put it on the fields. Now the comparison is from another company’s fertiliser. So we had a comparison and you can see a significant difference.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:14:35] Because on the right-hand side. So this a company fertiliser in this regenerated space is actually quite sparse and not very high. The vegetation, you can actually see the irrigation pipe there on your side. It’s very clearly far more lush and green.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:14:55] With no irrigation. And with respect to the company that the company did, the fertiliser, they obviously you could see they weren’t winning. So they put in some pipes as well. Trying to speed it up. But I don’t want to you know, I want to do that with respect.
But the point is, some people have actually seen the photos and don’t believe it is real. It’s very dramatic. And I don’t have the right photo to show the inventor of the hydrogen production process standing in it. So you can see how high it is, but it’s, you know, it’s getting towards a metre.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:15:26] So that is a profound thing that we can use to put it in context. So we’re growing fast-growing plants like cannabis or hemp, which is better known. We then take the fibre after it’s chopped up, add the microbes, add a nutrient brew with it, and we produce the hydrogen.
We then take the liquid residue to make the fertiliser, we then take the residual fibre because the carbohydrate portion has been consumed by the microbes to produce hydrogen. What you lift is the structural fibres of lignin and silica fibres, which actually increases the surface area for then bonding with a bio epoxy resin which is made from renewable sources, is non-toxic, and that’s as strong as anything.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:16:16] Testing with the ballistic company in America showed a five millimetres thick film or sheet stopped the bullet so they actually get can make body armour from it.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:16:27] Wow.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:16:27] So it’s incredibly strong. Therefore, we can get very light buildings that they can float on post which can be articulated to float with the flood. Obviously, there’s a limit to that. But it actually the company that’s based in Malaysia on their website, they show firing a ballistic at this military outpost and it didn’t even penetrate.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:16:51] Well, which I’m sure in America is a great selling point.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:16:55] Unfortunately, in Ukraine.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:16:57] Oh okay. Now listen, that’s so interesting. Now you raised this issue about building houses that floats. And of course, there are things called houseboats. And, you know, this is another one of… I look at all these houses in northern New South Wales and, you know, you’ve just got to feel for those people that have lost so much and yet the logistics of moving from the land they own and moving and rebuilding.
What an interesting idea to take the concept of the houseboat and build it around a house you can float. But I’m actually putting it, you know, I mean, that in itself is a wonderful boat.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:17:39] It’s anchored to the ground. Kill a post where you’ve got colours, if you like, which there’s different solutions. And I’ve yet to talk to the architect, but if the flood comes in, it will rise. Also, it’s important to realise that by a composite material is waterproof.
So you exclude the what if you sell everything off, but it will literally float up with it with the rising flood level. Depending on how high your posts are, there’s a limit to that. So if you’re getting mega, megafloods, that won’t work. But it’s firmly anchored to the ground. On the ground initially it’s not a house, but it’s a land-dwelling. Yeah.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:18:20] Okay, now…
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:18:22] Just to say every component. It just worked out to be every component we’re putting in to make the biocomposite sequesters carbon in and of itself. So it’s a majorly carbon negative building.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:18:34] Tell us about your new initiative, the H2 cubed. Is that what that is about?
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:18:40] Yeah, well, H2 stands for hibiscus cannabinus. Its common name is ‘Kenaf.” It’s incredibly fast-growing and you can grow three crops a year depending on your rainfall and soil and it’s very prolific. So I’m working with the Malaysian group and the Malaysian Kenaf Association. I’ll be visiting there when I can get there. So it’s very fast growing. It’s also very nutritious. The leaf can be made into a flour, high protein flour. It’s also good for the crop and every part of the plant can be used.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:19:13] For the same thing?
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:19:14] No. Kenaf is hibiscus cannabinus. It is obviously hemp.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:19:21] Yeah. Okay.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:19:21] So H2 stands for either hemp or hibiscus cannabinus. H2 also stands for hydrogen and cubed is kind of to the power of three, meaning we make three different products, in fact more by-products, but cubed also connotes building.
So what are the other things with sequestering carbon were producing fertiliser, were producing hydrogen, and then were producing and other by-products and we’re also producing buildings. Well, yeah.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:19:52] Well, I know this is so and then that’s one of the reasons I enjoyed talking to you, Chris, because I think like me, you suffer from chronic enthusiasm and optimism and you say we can have climate change covered. And I guess this is part of how we do that.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:20:10] Yeah, well well, basically the framing of that is cover crops will have climate change covered. And if I can go to the screenshare. So what was profound and I must refer. This work is from well, what inspired me is Walter Jehne and he’s done his…
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:20:32] He’s an ANU, isn’t he?
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:20:34] He was yes he and CSIRO. He has got many YouTube videos which are really worth getting into and I spent quite a lot of time understanding and digesting it. So here we have, if you can see the slide, you’ve got a cover crop on the extreme left and the temperature, the surface temperature is 19.5.
When you slash that as a kind of mulch, it’s 24.5, but the bare soil is 43.8, now that makes the surface in for difference. But the thermodynamics as such the amount of heat that’s re-radiated back to the atmosphere is equal to the surface temperature to the fourth power, not four times to the fourth power. So that’s a lot more heat coming off the surface.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:21:24] Now, if you look at Australia, it’s desert and it’s reflecting a lot of heat. Our average atmospheric temperature is 1.4 degrees, not one as approaching 1.1 world average because we’ve got a heat dome, we’ve got a desert reflecting all that heat.
So it’s not only the greenhouse gases, but it’s the land management. Makes a difference whether you cool or heat the planet. So simply all the ground covered all the time will have climate change covered. Now you can do it in every context of agriculture. So here we have a wonderful shot of…
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:22:07] Well, Chris, Chris, can you just go back to that last slide? Because I do want to for those that are audio on this, describe that we are looking literally at a piece of land that is probably just a few metres wide. Yes. And we’ve got vegetation that is probably a few 300 millimetres high or foot or too high. And the surface temperature there is 19 and a half-degree centigrade.
Then next to that, we’re looking at that having been mowed and some mulch on the ground and that is 24 degrees literally next to it. So we’ve gone from 19 and a half degrees centigrade to 24.5 degrees centigrade. And literally next to that is bare ground. Which is 43.8 degrees centigrade.
So within a distance of a few metres, the ground cover there, the temperature of ground cover varies for 19 and a half degrees centigrade to 43.8 degrees centigrade. I mean, that’s a phenomenal difference. So it’s around 24 centimetres, the centigrade hotter.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:23:21] Yeah. But if you take that ten degrees difference that it’s actually more than that, but it’s 14 degrees. But if you take that difference, then you… Sorry, it’s more than that. That’s 20, 24 degrees. But if you then look at the amount of heat that’s release, it’s equal to the surface temperature of the power of four. Right. It’s massive. So there is a soil-ution to have cover crops.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:23:49] Yes. So so again, I think this is such an important point that it bears repeating because you’re saying that if you take the surface temperature and then translate that into the effect that that surface temperature has on atmospheric temperature, it’s a significant increase on that as well. Four to the power of four, you’re saying?
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:24:11] Yes to the fourth power. Now, add to that two other factors, which is critical. I believe that we need to revolutionise agriculture by having every cultural enterprise with cover crops, be it pasture cropping. And now go into that, be it horticulture, be it viticulture, be it silver pasture, be it agroforestry. All the ground must be covered all of the time. Nature does that. All of that.
Now two other benefits. There are others, but I’ll just emphasise the main ones. Plants transpire. When a plant transpires the amount of heat required to take the water that was in the plant to gaseous water vapour, it requires 596 calories to take one gram of water from liquid to gaseous state. It’s called the late-night effect.
So you’re actually having a cooling effect through transpiration. Now it’s calculated that if we increase the transpiration on the planet by cover, covering the ground with vegetation, a mere 5% increase in transpiration will stabilise the climate full stop. If we stop and keep going up.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:25:34] So this transpiration is literally we’re going back to high school biochemistry here. And isn’t it interesting that actually, I know Elon Musk has issued $1,000,000 reward for anybody that can come up with a climate solution, whereas most of us in year seven learnt about photosynthesis and transpiration, the movement of water through a plant and into the atmosphere, and actually there’s the solution?
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:25:58] Well, it’s one of the solutions.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:25:59] One of the solutions.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:26:00] But there’s more. There’s more that we are losing. And this is conservative. The range of estimated topsoil loss through erosion is between 25 billion tonnes to 65 billion tonnes. And in particularly Australia, it’s very hot for every tonne of wheat we produce where we’re losing 14 tonnes of soil. So we’re losing soil at an extraordinarily fast rate and estimates are at current rates. We will have degraded or decertified 95% of the soil by 2050 or we’ve got 60 years of soil left that’s functional.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:26:40] So, Chris, just again, because you’re saying so much here and I want… There are so many important points here that soil erosion is and we’ve covered this with Allan Savory a few years back. And he said the biggest export in America is actually soil and it ain’t coming back. But you’re saying between 25 to 75 billion tonnes of soil is being eroded globally every year.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:27:06] Yeah. Now, if we take the lower estimate of 25 billion tonnes, that gets oxidised to carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide. Which of course, are greenhouse gases. But it goes further. The dust that’s released, the water vapour will nucleate around the dust particle. Right.
But in that form, it’s hydrophobic, meaning it won’t coalesce to form raindrops. They won’t come together. You’ve seen a dry soil, which does, you know, you try to put water on. It just runs off the surface like a water duck’s back. We’re doing the same in the atmosphere. We’re actually creating hazes from soil particles that have gone through wind erosion and go up and up and up. And that won’t produce rain.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:28:02] Ahh. That is so interesting. That’s a very interesting point.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:28:07] If you look at the whole cycles, if we’re looking at the water cycle, when a water drop forms from millions of these at least 10 million of these micronucleated water vapour coming in to condense to form a raindrop. When you get cloud formation, you’re actually reflecting 23% of the incoming radiation to the planet.
So it’s like an umbrella. We need that umbrella shading effect to reflect heat back. And trees do that masterfully by releasing volatile substances and bacteria. Aero bacteria, aerobika, which seed clouds as well. The three things are sea clouds of salt crystals from the ocean spray, ice and bacteria primarily from trees. Amazon has its own closed system. That’s what is called rain forest because it actually produces rain.
When you plant trees, you slow down the flood or translocation of water on the surface. You get deeper penetration of water because the soil structuring effect to the roots, etc., etc. We need to keep all of the ground covered all the time. If we just did that. It would be significant. So just to go over it with cooling the surface to stop that so powerful. We’re stopping the erosion which causes brown hazes which stop coalition of coalescing of water vapour into clouds. And we’re also increasing transpiration.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:29:51] Yes. It’s so interesting, Christo, because another guest we’ve had on is Terry McCosker, who’s into regenerative agriculture. He’s been teaching it for years and he said that ruminant urine has plant growth hormone in it and then it stimulates a microbe called streptococcus syringae to see this rain.
And this is you know when I look at this bare ground to the right here, the other thing that comes to mind is that when it does rain, it could take 20 or 30 minutes for the moisture to penetrate and in the process remove so much soil, which goes back to your 25 to 75 billion tons of soil. But it also we not only lose soil, but we lose water, which kind of is the whole thing about the ground cover and organic matter and soil as well.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:30:48] Absolutely. And the thing is, when you have stagnant water on hard ground, that evaporates very quickly when it goes through the soil stream, the roots through the plant, which has a cooling effect, you conserve the water.
Simply, if you take the idea that greenhouse gases and the dominant greenhouse gas is water vapour. If we did have water vapour mantle over the earth, the earth would be 33 degrees cooler. It traps heat, but it’s got out of balance. We’ve got more water vapour. From a number of mechanisms.
So water vapour is actually the point of agency. We need to work with the water cycle by building what’s called the soil carbon sponge. The soil carbon sponge is a soil which is aerated. It’s like a lung. It literally acts like a lung, but it also is a reservoir like a sponge. Can absorb water, but it can also have air in it at the same time.
Now, the importance of that is that if you imagine a pool formed by aggregates made by bacteria or fungi that increase the surface area of the soil in which nutrients are attached to usually organic matter, this is really important.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:32:17] The connection between the roots and the soil. There’s a transfer of nutrients to why the plant makes carbohydrates, which feeds the soil microbiome. But the soil provides nutrients to the plant, and it does it in a highly titrated, regulated way. If the plant needs, say, a calcium molecule, it the root will secrete a weak acid called carbonic acid. The hydrogen ions will displace the other cations of calcium, magnesium, whatever. In a regulated way. And then make that calcium magnesium bioavailable to the plant. It’s highly, highly regulated.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:33:05] And Christo, what I like about this discussion is because people will have heard the word nutrient-dense foods often, often. And it’s not hard to make a plant look impressive by just feeding it two or three or three nutrients. What is it? Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Potassium. But with what you’re describing, so many more of those trace elements are incorporated into the plant, which either we eat or the animals that we eat, eat.
And that’s how we end up getting the 40 or 50 or 60 elements that we need to be nutrient-dense. And that’s it at the coalface. It’s not really the coalface at the root face where what’s going on. Plants delivering sugar or carbohydrate to microbes in exchange for a well-titrated exchange of trace elements.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:34:02] Yeah. Which is highly specific to its needs.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:34:06] It’s beautiful to hear that.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:34:08] The important thing here is that when you give soluble fertilisers, nitrogen phosphate acid, which will bloat the cell up. But actually, why, conventional food is not tasty unless you fit in with genetics. It’s because you’re buying salt and water.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:34:31] But it looks impressive. It looks impressive.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:34:33] The way you push those mineralised soluble, water soluble minerals elements into the plant is by monogradient. Other words, you have a higher concentration of nitrogen fossil potassium outside. Then there are two kind of roots of the hair roots, which have a very fine root-like structure. And therefore the the surface area is increased because it’s got a smaller diameter. Yeah. Yes.
But the other routes, the drinking routes there, they’re the ones that take up water primarily. And they work by having a high concentration inside, which means that it’ll draw in water. But because of the solar, it’s inside the root. Right now, if you have highly soluble mineral fertilisers, they will go through the drinking roots and not through the hair roots. And it’s totally unregulated.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:35:39] Now, what happens then is that those. That nutritional profile of the artificially fertilised plant. It’s actually hydroponics. It’s just the plant happens to be in. So rather than in a pot, in a hydroponic factory. So it’s hydroponics. It’s just shifting nutrients via water into the plant. But what that does, it weakens the plant and it puts out a different frequency which insects when they come to plant. I see. Oh, this is a this is weak plant, let’s eat that one.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:36:14] Mm hmm.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:36:14] And all that works when we use microbes to create the right soil structure for increased nutrient cycling. We do get a 30% increased nutrient density. They are not interested in a healthy plant.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:36:28] So isn’t it so interesting again to say, yes, we can use superphosphate, those nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and grow a plant, but it’s inherently weak and is attracted to insects, which then require pesticides and yet still we take them to market.
The alternative way is to improve the soil through this kind of it’s almost like an organic biodynamic approach which sets up for a very not only a very healthy plant that isn’t isn’t easy pickings for the insects, but it’s also better for us. I mean, that’s a total win win win, isn’t it? Apart from the chemical industry, which loses.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:37:14] Yeah. Well, interestingly, because I’ve also been involved with cancer research, it’s interesting that when a plant is eaten by when they start to taste an organic plant, let’s say it will create secondary metabolites which are bitter substances. Those secondary metabolites, all of them are selective anti-cancer agents. They will weed out road cancer cells in the body.
But the other thing is when you have soil that has minimal too low to no-till to win that plan is eaten and secretes the sacred metabolite. It sends chemical messages just like our brain since chemical messages throughout the fungal networks to all the surrounding plants to make secondary metabolites.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:38:07] You see, Chris, this is what I find so interesting. I know there’s a whole ethical issue about eating animals because it’s cruel and you know, they deserve a life. But I feel the same is true of plants. Just because they don’t move doesn’t mean they aren’t sentient. Just because they don’t speak our language, they actually communicate with each other, with other microbes, with other living things. I actually don’t think we should eat anything. Chris I think it’s too cruel because we kill everything that we have to eat. What do you think?
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:38:36] We’ll say you want to be a breatharian.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:38:39] A breatharian. And I think it’s the next way we’ve gone through the vegetarian, vegan, you know. Yeah. I think we’re going to reduce ourselves to just having breath as our nutrient.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:38:50] Or before we go down that rabbit hole…
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:38:53] Sorry, I just couldn’t resist, but you were describing. You’re describing such an almost sentient being.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:39:00] Well, yeah. I mean, interestingly, and this is a divergence, but with our biodynamic processes, we actually make the soil intelligent and sentient. But that’s a whole new chapter.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:39:10] Yeah, yeah.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:39:11] But I’ll just finish on that. Just to take that point out, interestingly, the 504 preparation made from steel metal Steiner said, the father of biodynamics, said the stinging nettle preparation makes the soil intelligent so the plant can select what it needs specifically and not be dumbed down and force-fed. But just on the point of mining the atmosphere.
Plants and microbes build soil, and chemical fertilisers in time destroy the soil. And I know that I spent three months travelling throughout China on slow trains and looked at the destruction of land from the Green Revolution that’s happened most of the world because you basically collapse the soil structure, you actually make the lung-like structure, the soil collapse so it doesn’t breathe and it’s thirsty. And we opened it up again by ploughing, which destroys the fungal networks in the soil microbiome.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:40:20] So we’re doing it all wrong. We will. But when we understand we talked about the oceans before. The ocean has a hundred and thirty micro trace and ultra-trace elements. Now that circumnavigate the world, the salt spray circumnavigate the world and in very low concentrations.
All of the trace elements are present. I may have asked you this question before. How much if you take a plant, dehydrate it because got 70% water. Just like we have. And you look at the actual content. Physical content left. What percentage of that content came from the atmosphere and what percent came from the soil?
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:41:14] Go on, tell me.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:41:15] 95% came from the atmosphere. Clearly, CO2 makes carbohydrates, nitrogen initially came from the atmosphere, and make protein, but all the trace elements are present. Now, to back that up, there are air plants which I have close by. This is an air plant. It hasn’t been watered, so it’s dried up. But that grew completely out of the atmosphere.
So, Patterson’s curse grows in copper-deficient soil. Paterson’s curse concentrate on copper-efficient soil. Well, it’s copper deficient and it’s harvesting elements from the atmosphere. Yeah, it specialises in concentrating copper. Right. Yeah. So that’s one example.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:42:10] If you take a rosebush and you analyse the soil, initially, there’ll be no titanium unless it’s got titanium prey. Over time the leaves from the rosebush, etc., which is taking titanium from the atmosphere, you will get ever increasing levels of titanium from the soil, plants and microbes to build soil where as chemical fertilisers eventually destroy soils. The soils are straw structures, making it more prone to erosion, etc. It stops the soil, blues, etc. So it’s just wrong.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:42:54] Now, Chris, you also talk about deserts, and I think you’ve alluded to some of that here. And deserts are a growing problem. I mean, they’re expanding literally as we speak. You’re talking about a project you’ve got to green up the deserts. Tell us a little bit about that.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:43:10] Well, greening the desert and if anyone listening here has a property in arid or degraded land, contact me via Ron or contact me on growingbp@gmail.com.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:43:24] Yeah. We’ll have links to that.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:43:25] Yeah, sure. So fortunately I have someone who’s volunteered to cooperate, We’re gonna get hectare as a proof of concept, essentially where it’s a stratified approach. So working from the tree level right down to the soil level and beyond. So what are we doing? Okay, we need to plant trees because they attract water. 80% of the moisture.
In a desert that hits the ground comes from condensation from trees. 80%, not from any 20%, from rainfall, 80%. So the more trees you can plant, the more condensation you can get, the more moss you get in the soil, which is critical.
So how do you speed that process up? I’ve been working on a concept called seed bombs, and we’re probably going to call them Seeds of Hope. Seed bombs, which we release from drones in a very regulated and precision like manner. And we take the seed. We then soak the seed in our 500 different species of microbes, which do multiple functions, including reducing the amount of water required. We then put hydrogels of polymers which are water retentive and expand up to 2000 times and give a slow release of water.
We then this more difficult stage. We then ideally will coat that seed bomb with a super hydrophilic substance, which is non-toxic from polymers, which will one condense water that from the atmosphere. Then once that sorry absorb the water vapour from the atmosphere, then condense the water vapour and then inflate the beads of hydrogels which inflate plus organic fertiliser.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:45:17] So it’s got different layers to it and we can drop those from bombs when we do it as seed bombs and we can do we will strategically work with the controls, probably do some earthworks as in swales or bunds. Then we.
We then dropped those in a very dense fashion. So we get over a lot of little seedlings growing and it’s known there’s a Japanese forester. If you plant densely, you get ten times the rate of growth and you’re creating a little microclimate, which will then have its cycling of nutrients and water, which is critical. Right. So that’s the first phase.
The second part is we use the soil inoculum of the 500 microbes sprayed by drones or planes or helicopters or from quad bikes or tractors or whatever, and they massively change the soil structure. So we’re sculpting that with stretching the soil aboveground through earthworks, but we’re structuring the soil itself with microbes. And they create these little chalices is to receive water and also have that increased surface area for nutrient cycling.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:46:32] We are proud to say after we set the seed in the 500 different species, we then coat that with spores of endophytic fungi which do two things, increase the drought resilience and also increase the capacity of that plant to grow in salty soil. If we’re using water as an irrigating source, so we’re working very much to try and produce salt resilient or resistant plants that we increase the capacity of the plant to have water which is high in salt from water, which is quite available.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:47:17] So as the initial moisture coming from more water. Because over a desert, you just kind of outline bare ground dust is not very is hydrophobic.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:47:29] It just depends. Ideally, we’d like to do it without any external irrigation, but if we need to start off. But the other thing about the Hydrogels or the polymers is that there’s been work done in Tanzania and the United Arab Emirates. When you add three grams of these water-retaining crystals to a little seedling that you plant, say manually or even in a crop, you only need to water twice within the growing cycle.
But for a seedling, a tree seedling, you just need to get it established. And particularly if it’s got lots of others around, it creates microclimate and you’re giving 80% of that water condensation for the night desert atmosphere.
So depends on whether we can actually get the right highly water absorbent out of a coat. Whether it’s economically feasible has to be non-toxic, etc. They do exist. But I’ve been doing quite a bit of research in that area, so it’s yet to be finalised.
But even if we don’t use the hydrophilic super hydrophilic advocate, we’ve still got a seed bomb which has got the water-retentive agent in it and there’s always going to be some rain in the desert or we can supplement with external.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:48:45] And how soon would you start to expect some greening?
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:48:50] Look, with all the other things we’re adding to it what’s called Seeds of Hope. They germinate quite quickly. I mean, I’ve been doing experiments, but not in an arid setting. But certainly, look, it depends on the species, you know. But the main thing is that when we add the water-retentive crystals, if we’re doing manual planting, which is 25 times slower and 80% more expensive, if you get 99.5% viable growth, well in other words, you reduced the tree mortality significantly.
There’s a native to Australia called Carmelina Sinai. It’s got a little blue flower-like Sinai blue. And if you plant that in an agricultural context, you reduce the irrigation by 75% because it doesn’t evaporate transpire. It’s a creeper. And it doesn’t require many nutrients. It’s very shallow, really, but it’ll keep that ground covered.
Now, I proposed this to a group in Egypt called SEKEM that farms the desert and they get the water from the lateral flow of water from the Nile. But they basically have sand added compost, compost, compost. And they also used in that highly productive and I said, use the Carmelina Sinai. I’ll send you a sample. And they said it won’t tolerate the hot conditions.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:50:26] When I go for walks always looking at vegetation and collecting along the way. And there was a Carmelina Sinai growing on the cement pavement in the crack that was getting full-blown heat. What it did is another adaptive mechanism. You know, you can call your tongue up. It curls a leaf up to reduce evaporation. But it was viable. Therefore, it should grow in hostile conditions.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:50:55] Yeah. Yeah. Now, Chris, let’s just we’re going to finish up because I mean, there’s so much to talk about, but I wondered if we might just say, what are the top three interventions? Let’s just summarise them to reverse climate change by, say, 2030. I like to hear positive. See, I know you’ve got them.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:51:13] Well from the atmosphere.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:51:16] From the atmosphere.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:51:17] Yeah. Keep all the ground covered all the time. Biodiverse species cover crop. Build a soil carbon sponge by organic matter, plus a solenoconoids which creates that soil carbon sponge. Keeping in mind the soil carbon sponge is made up of organic matter, which initially came from the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and water vapour condenses.
So it’s drawing down the water vapour and the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, creating a soil carbon sponge which makes a reservoir for storing water. So 1% increase in soil carbon will increase the water holding capacity by 144,000 litres per hectare.
And number two, which goes hand in hand with cover cropping. No tool means you don’t disturb the social structure. Which means that you don’t oxidise the soil and you’ve got those communication networks. The wood wide web. The communication networks through the fungi is primarily that and certainly don’t plough the soil or add chemicals which destroy the soil structure and the soil microbiome.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:52:40] So I always enjoy catching up. It’s always grounds for hope when we speak. And I think we need to be hearing more of these kinds of messages, and particularly one that takes such a holistic view of it.
Christo. I know this is a big topic, but you I know you also say it’s not the CO2, it’s the H2O that we need to deal with. Can you explain that? You know, go into that a bit. We are very the centres are around carbon dioxide. But tell us more.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:53:12] Yeah look we haven’t to look at the historical perspective. In 1958, Charles Keeling did the extraordinary work of measuring CO2 and noticed it was going up. And it was also noted that the average atmospheric temperature was going up and it was sort of a fait accompli. You know, cause effect correlation was made, but they coexist. They don’t necessarily one doesn’t necessarily cause the other as a major driver of climate change.
Now, the reason Keeling did that was that in order to model climates of the future and make projections, he said, water is so ubiquitous, so infemoral. And so dominant. There’s no way in hell. That you can model it. And he added to that, he said, Well, it’s so dominant that surely mankind’s activity can’t make a difference.
Therefore, to simplify it, we’ll just take water out of the equation. But since that time with NASA and monitoring from space, we can monitor it. And the estimates are, again, it’s flexible because it’s so changeable moment to moment is between 60 to 80% of the greenhouse gas effect is from water vapour.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:54:42] Now let’s look at the molecule of water. It’s a 120-degree angle. That means that it traps incoming radiation as water vapour, not as cloud, but it also that shortwave but CO2 doesn’t trap the shortwave radiation from the sun. When the shortwave radiation hits the ground, it’s then reflected as longwave radiation and carbon dioxide can trap the longwave radiation, as does water vapour.
But there’s slight differences in the amount to which they trap that heat. Putting them together, they both trap the long wave radiation. So it’s an additive. It’s actually a multiplier effect.
Again, those variable estimates. So any input of greenhouse gas or anthropogenic gases, there is at least a twofold to fivefold increase in temperature from water vapour. So the more the simple analogy is you’ve got a pot of water and you’re turning out the gas, and that’s analogous to the anthropogenic gases.
You’re going to create more water vapour at a faster rate. Right? Now that water vapour is the dominant greenhouse gas. And to reinforce that, if we didn’t have the mantle of water vapour in the atmosphere, our earth would be 33 degrees colder.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:56:15] Hmm.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:56:16] It’s a greenhouse gas. But it also multiplies the effect of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. So when we aim for net-zero by 2050, this is problematic for the following reasons. Whatever it picks up parts per million, You know, whatever it is, it’s currently 418 parts per million of CO2. Whatever it takes up by 2050, we will have that legacy for hundreds of years to come because it’s a very stable molecule.
Furthermore, prior to the Industrial Revolution, there was more CO2 in the ocean than there was in the atmosphere. So you had an influx of CO2 from the oceans to the atmosphere. When we reach a point a hundred years from now, when the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is less than the CO2 in the oceans, and by the way, 30% of CO2 goes to the oceans per year.
We will have the exit of all that CO2 in the atmosphere, oceans back into the atmosphere. So we’re looking at thousands of years from now. And we’re already facing crises now at the current level of CO2. Whereas water vapour being the dominant greenhouse gas. I say it’s too much of a good thing in the wrong place.
Let’s see water vapour is an untapped resource. If we have cows and trees to see the clouds, then we’re getting more rainfall and the clouds themselves reflect incoming radiation. If we build a soil carbon sponge, we’re keeping more water in the ground. A 0.4% increase in soil carbon will increase the amount of water in the soil by 37.5 trillion litres.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:58:16] Hmm. That sounds like a big number.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:58:18] Yes. So I can’t really turn my head how many litres of water vapour there is, but it’s obviously. But if we make the soil receptive to infiltration, percolation and storage of water in the ground, that problem of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, water vapour becomes the resource.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:58:40] Hmm.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [00:58:41] If we add trees and groundcover, which are the the the air conditioners of the planet, we’re cooling the planet more. I see it this way. Water vapour is involved in 95% of the heat transfer of the planet. So if you have an ice cube and you add heat to it, then it goes to water vapour. Then it goes, sorry, goes to water, then it goes to water vapour. Heat is transferred through those three different states of water. Right.
So if we want to change the heat budget of the planet. We need to get more condensation of water. Water vapour. By seeding clouds and by storing the water in plants or soil. Major difference. And as you said before, a 5% increase in transpiration will stabilise the climate. But I’m talking about reversing climate change by building soil which contain water. So it becomes a sponge which can hold water but also breathe and suck on nutrients.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [00:59:53] Which is coming back to the story about the importance of soil.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [01:00:00] Soil, but more particularly what the geoengineers saw microbes and every thing we do in conventional agriculture destroys the microbes. Everything. Yeah. It fungicides, biocides, herbicides, pesticides. Ploughing the soil destroys the soil structure. And the green revolution across the planet has destroyed the soil structure. When you destroy the soil structure, it’s no longer stable, so it’s prone to erosion.
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [01:00:30] Well, this green revolution, of course, has delivered us seemingly cheap food, and I say seemingly cheap because it might be appeared cheap in the supermarket. But the costs to human health and planetary health are enormous. So the Green Revolution has benefited some, but certainly caused a lot of obesity. That’s part of the problem that it’s created and it’s helped create the environmental degradation that we’re seeing today.
Dr Christos Miliotis: [01:01:01] It comes to price point differences. Organic food is more expensive. They say it’s 20% on average more, but it’s highly variable, but it’s got three more per cent nutrients. So therefore you can eat less. Sad thing is, the true cost is a movement called true cost mechanic. The true cost of conventional food is double what you pay.
So if you go and buy a McDonald’s hamburger for three bucks, it’s actually six bucks in terms of the health cost and the planetary health cost as you mentioned. So you don’t because those costs aren’t included. They’re externalised costs. They’re not included in the price structure. We’re getting a false perception of the true cost of that food we’re buying to our health and to the planet’s health.
Conclusion
Dr Ron Ehrlich: [01:01:51] Thank you so much for joining us today again and sharing your wisdom. We’ll have links to your site, of course, so people can find out and learn more. Thank you so much. I enjoy talking to Christos because he reframes some of the issues and sees what many see as a problem and tries to work out a way of making them a resource.
His whole discussion about carbon dioxide as a resource, the alerting as to the importance of water, but the water cycle hydrology as also being an integral part of climate change and the fact that by increasing ground cover, I thought that was so interesting to look at the ground within a few metres of each other, one that had lush growth on it, very low temperature. Next to that, the mode that vegetation had been mowed. So there was mulch on the ground covering the growth and the temperature rose and next to that was bare soil.
And I think if we extrapolate that onto the global stage, we get a sense of what is going on and that is so much bare soil is increasing ground temperature, which has a flow-on effect on air temperature and affects soil loss. That statistic of between 25 and 75 billion tonnes of soil being lost every year is an enormous issue. And the fact that dust in the atmosphere is actually hydrophobic. So that means not water-loving or hydrophilic.
And this is why it’s such an and subject, so important to take a holistic approach to this and also why animals are such an important part of this process. Because to grow soil, I know that it takes nature 500 years to grow two and a half centimetres or one inch of soil. Now, when you’re losing soil at 25 to 75 billion tonnes a year, taking 500 years to grow soil back is just not going to really do it.
So we actually need to engage with regenerative agricultural practises because in a well-managed and regenerative agricultural farm that uses ruminants that that resource constructively and in a holistic way, you can regrow one inch or 2.5 centimetres of soil in 3 to 5 years, not 500 years, 3 to 5 years.
And that is why the resource of animal agriculture is so important. In industrial animal agriculture, animals locked up in feedlots or in pens or in cages. I think that’s terrible. It’s terrible for the animal. It’s terrible for the quality of the meat we have. It’s terrible for the planet and it’s terrible for our health. So I don’t have any argument about that.
But to just completely ignore animals as part of the solution is naive at best and totally negligent at worst. So I think they have a very important part to play in terms of regenerating the soil microbiome, improving organic matter within the soil, improving the ability of the soil to deliver nutrients, to the plants that either the animals eat or that we eat and increasing the amount of water within the soil.
This takes us back to the podcast I did with Charlie Massy, and he talked about the five cycles that are the solar cycle and that is (1) photosynthesis. Remember that for year, seven or first-year high school in biology. (2) The solar cycle, (3) the water cycle, which is all about increasing organic matter in the soil to regenerate to hold soil and hold water in the soil. (4) The soil mineral cycle, which is all about the microbes, the mycorrhizal fungi. In a healthy teaspoon of soil, we have about a million, a billion microbes. In a healthy cubic metre of soil.
We have 27,000 kilometres of mycorrhizal fungi. They are the fine hairs which grow there. So we have the solar cycle, the water cycle, and the soil minerals cycle which involves you and me. And every farmer and consumer in the world is (5) the human social cycle.
So this is really where a holistic approach hits the ground. You know, it literally hits the ground and affects every aspect of our health. Look, we’ll have links to Christos’ site. I hope this finds you well. Until next time. This is Dr Ron Ehrlich. Be well.
This podcast provides general information and discussion about medicine, health, and related subjects. The content is not intended and should not be construed as medical advice or as a substitute for care by a qualified medical practitioner. If you or any other person has a medical concern, he or she should consult with an appropriately qualified medical practitioner. Guests who speak in this podcast express their own opinions, experiences, and conclusions.