Shows›Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach›UW Professor Richard C. Keller on the U.S. government ending pollution regulation (Hour 2)›Transcript

Transcript

UW Professor Richard C. Keller on the U.S. government ending pollution regulation (Hour 2)

Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach · Fri Feb 27, 2026

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Welcome back to Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

My name is Greg Bach.

Pete is out tonight, but you've got me and I've got you and I'm so happy you're hanging out with us this evening.

Very, very excited to have our next guest on the show.

He is the Robert Terrell Professor and Chair of Medical History and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

His name is Dr. Richard C. Keller.

He is our guest this evening.

Dr. Keller, thank you so much for being here tonight.

How are you doing?

Wonderful.

Thanks, and thanks so much for inviting me.

Excellent.

So happy you were able to join us this evening.

Now, first, let's just start at the beginning.

Tell us about yourself and what is your job as the Robert Terrell Professor of Medical History and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin?

Sure.

I'm trained in the history of medicine.

I've been here for 23, 24 years now.

I teach courses to medical students, graduate students, and undergraduates.

on the social and cultural dimensions of health and its history.

Okay, excellent.

Now, when we reached out to talk to you, we wanted to talk actually about a decision that was made in the Trump administration about a week and a half ago regarding the repeal of the endangerment finding.

Can you give us an overview of what it is and what it removal means for policy going forward here in the United States regarding environmentalism?

Sure.

So my research focus is on the intersection of environment and health.

So this certainly means a great deal to me, especially its potential impact moving forward.

The Endangerment Finding is a product of 2009, a decision that essentially sort of finds that six particular greenhouse gases cause significant harm to human health.

And this basically serves as the basis for nearly all climate regulation in the United States under the Clean Air Act.

So this repeal, if it stands up, ultimately means that virtually all emission standards for cars and trucks, for example, will be functionally null and void.

That'll mean cheaper manufacture for automakers, but there will really be no incentive for automakers to produce any kind of low or zero emission vehicles and no incentive for communities to invest in infrastructure to support those kinds of vehicles, charging stations, for

example.

From what it says in the articles I've read is that not only have they repealed or removed these endangerment findings, they've made it such that future administrations can't put it back into place.

Now, for me as someone who doesn't understand that world, can you make me understand why what they're doing is going to be difficult or impossible to undo?

Sure, I'm no lawyer nor am I a legislator, so I'm probably not the best expert to answer that question But essentially the goal is to you know really reduce disincentives for industry to you know adhere to the curtailment of carbon emissions essentially by

kind of rendering this endangerment finding null and void what they're essentially doing is Eliminating the idea that there's any potential human health implications for climate regulations and so

Ultimately, by making this more difficult for future administrations to impose new limits, they're really aiming for a degree of sort of permanence here in repealing what they call this kind of climate or fighting what they call a kind of climate hoax.

And I feel like for a lot of folks, this information is, of course, like, I mean, there's so much happening all the time.

There's always a new, new story every single day.

And I feel that this may, for some folks, feel out of the blue.

might not be aware of what the endangerment finding is, but this is nothing new.

This is something that folks have been working on for some time, essentially trying to derail and debunk all of these environmental findings that have been going back a long ways, but it's something they've kind of hidden the tall grass over and finally have their chance to do it and they've done it, correct?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, the Endangered Finding itself was the product of years and years of intensive labor and lobbying to try to get it into place.

In the early 2000s, the presidential administration fought the implementation of this finding.

It was only in 2009 that it actually came into full effect.

But really, if we look even just at more recent history, this is essentially a kind of four-part story that begins in January 2025 with the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement.

And then if you look at May 2025, what you see is an order from the administration to stop considering the economic damage of climate change.

This is otherwise known as the social cost of carbon, which my colleague Paul Kelleher, a renowned public health bioethicist, has just written a book about.

The social cost of carbon basically reflects the estimated damage from global climate change, including things like wildfires, floods, droughts, and heat waves.

It's kind of a cost-benefit analysis.

What essentially is the cost of reducing carbon production, and then what are the potential savings?

So if you think of the economic damage of the Los Angeles fires, or the North Carolina floods, or the impact of drought on agriculture, or even something like hospitalizations and deaths linked to heat waves, basically federal agencies can no longer consider those kinds of damages.

They can only consider the cost of carbon production and not the damage that it causes.

Then we fast forward to January 2026, where there's been a change in policy on economic calculations of environmental protection costs.

So regulations, as we all know, cost money, right?

Reducing air pollution requires a shift to cleaner technologies at times, more expensive fuels, and this all reduces profits.

So that would be the cost of environmental regulation.

But there's also a significant gain, right?

The savings improved from improved health as a consequence or as a result of those tighter regulations.

So we can think again of costs of hospitalizations during air pollution events, for example, the costs of treating chronic illnesses like asthma that might result from pollution exposure or be exacerbated by pollution exposure, or even the cost of lifelong disabilities that might result from adult childhood exposures to pollution.

Now, in January, the administration stopped considering savings and now only counts costs.

And this is a pretty dramatic shift that really ignores the benefits in considering only the burdens of regulation.

Now, in both of these cases, right, in the case of not considering the costs of climate change and not the social cost of carbon and not considering the costs of air pollution,

There is something kind of ethically fraught here.

This is something that my ethics colleagues have really wrestled with extensively, because how can you place a monetary value on life?

Because that immediately starts to introduce questions of, are there different values for different people, different kinds of values for different kinds of lives?

Is an upper middle class Western life worth more than the life of a deeply impoverished person in the global south?

And how can you then morally defend those differential values?

But make no mistake, right?

This is not a matter of just eliminating a kind of crass monetary valuation to replace it with something different and more defensible.

It's ultimately really here a matter of valuing lives at zero, which is brand new.

And that, for me, I've got a whole list of questions here and everything you just said just leads me to, I mean, and I'm sure, where do they say, well, this, what we're doing is good for, dot, dot, dot, the people, officially, because when they speak about things of, you know, we're doing this for America, America first, for the people, freedom, all these things, I guess what you just described, there's no intrinsic value for human beings.

overall.

So why would they do this in the first place?

And that, I guess, call that a dumb question, but it seems like that's the only place it leads me is, what good does this do for the average American citizen?

I mean, I guess in theory, it could ultimately reduce costs.

If you're buying a car, if there aren't all these kinds of expenses that manufacturers have to incur while producing lower emissions vehicles or something along those lines, it could reduce costs for all kinds of industrial manufactured goods because you don't have to worry about installing scrubbers and your smokestacks and so on.

But really, one could argue very easily that the health costs of these increased

levels, increased levels of greenhouse gases, we'll all dramatically offset the kind of meager savings we might realize when we're going shopping or buying a car or a new appliance.

If you're just joining us on Nightlight with Pete Schwabbe and Greg Bach, my name is Greg.

I am the host.

Pete is out this evening, but we are talking to Dr. Richard C. Keller, who is the Robert Terrell Professor and Chair of Medical History and Bioethics.

about the repeal of the endangerment findings by the Trump administration about a week and a half ago.

And that actually leads me to another point that I saw in another article, which was that this doesn't seem to be pushed so much by big business per se because they have already put themselves in a place of spending millions of dollars to

comply with what the government has been doing for the past 17 years.

So it's not so much they're the big baddie behind all of this because they're already on track to be a part of the solution.

Am I correct in assuming that?

Or I mean, I'm sure there's some businesses who are saying, yes, good, get rid of held.

And the examples you gave, I mean, not having scrubbers inside of these businesses, that's the business.

That's the business owners.

you know, benefit.

But as far as the human being goes, like, it seems like who is the, I guess, who is the person behind all this?

Is it just folks who just think climate change is a hoax?

And that's their plan.

And that's their goal is to get rid of anything having to do with legislation.

Yeah, I don't think there's really a simple answer here I think in you know if there were a simple answer then you know yes, right?

I think there are You know lots of vested interests who really want to minimize the potential impact of climate change Or minimize the the very idea of the potential impact of climate change

But I think it's a little bit more complex than that.

Certainly, there are indications in the Project 2025 document about potential efforts to repeal the endangerment finding, for example.

But you mentioned the costs are already baked into much of industry who've already worked hard to comply with regulations.

But I think the idea here is that essentially,

implications of something like the endangerment finding mean that we're looking at potential increased costs of increasing regulations further down the road and to throw out simply, you know, the kind of the foundation on which these regulations stand will make it very difficult to impose new regulations based on that science.

And so

It's not so much about costs that are already sunk in the process of reducing carbon emissions, but really potential future costs.

And so I would argue that many industries probably have a real interest in repealing the endangerment finding.

Gotcha.

Now, and all this to be said too, this still can go to court.

These can all be like, I've seen, I've seen reports from Gavin Newsman, the governor of California saying, you know, we're going to take this to court.

Cause this is, this is unlawful and this is bad for the American people.

I mean, they have gotten rid of the endanger findings, but that's just the next step that essentially it'll probably go to court.

Correct?

It already is in court.

There are a number of lawsuits that are already in play from lobbying organizations, potentially from state attorneys general.

So this is certainly something that's not going to go away quietly, but whether it goes away or not ultimately will depend on the

courts.

When we come back from a break, what I want to do is I want to talk a little bit, one, about how this whole thing is not really baked into the right-left politics.

The history of it all actually goes back to Republicans trying to create a better Earth for our country back in the 70s.

But also, I want to talk about how all this can affect Wisconsin with warmer temperatures and with record highs in March, as we're seeing, March become more of a springtime.

month and it was a winter month.

I want to talk more about that as well.

We're talking to Dr. Richard C. Keller here on Nightlight and we'll discuss this more on the other side of the break.

So don't go anywhere.

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Welcome back to Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

My name is Greg Bach.

I am one half of the dynamic duo.

Pete is out this evening, but don't you worry, we are hanging out.

We are having fun and we are talking to Dr. Richard C. Keller, who is the Robert Terrell Professor and Chair of Medical History and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

We were talking about the repeal of the endangerment findings by the Trump administration, what that means for future legislation, what that means for the American citizens and business.

But one thing I want to make clear really quick is that these findings, Dr. Keller, were enacted in 2009, essentially, but they're far older than that because they are rooted, as you said, in research that goes back decades and were embraced by Republicans, both Richard Nixon and George Bush Sr.

Yes, everything is political nowadays, but the Earth and its health is something that's been embraced for a long time by both sides.

Can you talk more about that?

Sure.

Well, you know, Nixon of all people, right, introduced the Clean Air Act in the early 1970s, as well as the Clean Water Act established the Environmental Protection Agency quite simply because

The environment was in rapid decline right in absolute free fall.

This is when the Cuyahoga River was on fire.

It was just getting kind of impossible to deny.

So it was a real kind of unanimity or at least broad consensus in favor of imposing environmental regulations in order to kind of stop this absolute crisis.

And you said it right there is that there are so many environmental things going on right now and one of the things we see now is

In Wisconsin, we see our winters getting what seems shorter and shorter.

It's late February right now.

It's about mid 40s, upper 50s.

That's something as a child I wasn't used to.

What does the repeal or the removal of the endangerment findings do for a place like Wisconsin that's already seeing warmer winters?

Now that those are gone, what could happen with that sort of removal of

guardrails on whether it's business or conductive business.

How does that affect just the regular folks here in Wisconsin?

Sure.

I mean, I can imagine we could see some potential upsides, right?

Like I rode my bike to work today and I really might not do that in the end of February.

And it was quite pleasant actually, to be honest.

And, you know, shorter winters are something that we all might kind of get behind.

that could also really have a profound impact on tourism on industries like snowmobiling or things like the Birkebinder, you know, major events and experiences that people associate with Wisconsin winters.

It could mean a longer growing season for farmers.

Like I know that I'm gonna be able to plant my garden a little bit earlier this year, probably if this weather keeps up.

So that might seem like an upside, but on the downside, we're also looking at a much longer mosquito and tick season with all the potential vector-borne diseases that are associated with those insects.

So there are some major downsides.

In particular, there's been a great deal of chatter recently about Wisconsin being a potential climate haven.

a place where people with resources might move to escape the worst effects of climate change.

But I would argue that, you know, all of the trends are indicating that we are becoming more and more vulnerable to a change in climate.

And indeed, you know, this is something that this repeal of the endangerment finding can only exacerbate.

And also, you know, I know that you work

you work in academia, you work with students, you work with, you look at policy.

What does this also mean for say environmental groups?

The groups that their mission is to help save the environment.

How will the, how will the endangerment finding make their jobs possibly harder?

And, and, and I want to throw in there something that we both I think agree on is that like, yeah, I don't mind a 50 degree day in February.

People might say like, well, what's the point?

Why is it so important?

How does, how does all of that make their jobs harder going forward then?

Sure.

Well, for example, I'm a member of the Wisconsin Heat Network, which is an loosely organized group of academics, policymakers, and health workers who are profoundly concerned about the impact of high heat.

So, yeah, a 50-degree day in March or February.

is kind of nice, but a hundred degree a day in July is not so nice, right?

And more and more of those are going to lead to increasing numbers of hospitalizations and deaths.

Indeed, already in Wisconsin, heat kills far more people than cold every year.

And extreme heat is a leading threat to human health.

For example, there was a study released by the National Weather Service in 2024 that indicates that over a 30-year rolling average, heat

He'd accounted for roughly 40% of deaths due to extreme weather.

But if you look at just the last 10 years, that number increases to 60%.

So that's a 50% increase in just the course of the last decade.

So high heat is an extreme danger and is only getting worse.

And that's making really all of our jobs harder.

And the last thing I want to ask you, you know, you are a teacher, you're a professor, you work with young people all the time.

What are you hearing from your students, from your TAs, all the people you work with who are in those younger generations about what's happening right now?

What is the overall attitude?

lot of despair, a lot of horror.

And one of the things I really strive to work toward in my teaching, I teach a course in global environmental health, for example, you know, there's

There's not a lot of good news to share, but I really struggle to find moments of hope, glimmers of potential hope.

And a lot of that comes down to activism and really trying to think about how individual people like you and me and like our students and like our broader population can come together to try to make a difference.

I will remind people that this is an election year.

It's always an election year in Wisconsin, but there's people who want to run for the job.

Check out and see where they stand on the environmental issues, if that's something close to your heart, because that's how we voice our change and voice our hearts to the world.

And Dr. Keller, I really appreciate your time this evening.

I really appreciate you being here, talking to us about something very serious, very important, but also we needed to have this discussion on a regular basis, because this affects us directly.

Thank you so much, Dr. Keller.

Appreciate you.

Thanks so much for having me.

I appreciate the invitation.

All right.

Don't go anywhere.

There's more to come here on nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

Pete's out of town.

I don't know where he's at.

I'm taking over for the evening, but don't worry.

You're in good hands with me.

I promise you coming up in a little bit.

Also a handy tip from Greg.

So stick around.

Stay tuned.

Stay close.

You're listening to the Civic Media Network.

Welcome

back to Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

My name is Greg Bach.

We are Pete.

trouble us tonight.

Don't worry, he'll be back on Monday.

You can be part of the conversation, of course, by calling 855-752-4842-855-75 Civic.

Leave a comment on that live stream.

Again, we are on Facebook, YouTube and the platform.

We still call Twitter and I'll, a couple of things here actually, cause we talked about the passing of Neil Sudak.

If anyone wants to talk about his favorite, their favorite songs.

Seaman concert you ever meet him love to hear from you on that one answer the question What is your favorite?

What is your favorite piece of technology before the invention of the cell phone?

And we'd love to know about that now.

I think it only is befitting this question to find out from Dom the answer because Dom I'm not making fun of you.

You are 22 years old

Um, I would say, you know, let's see the, the iPhone is about to celebrate 20 years, like been around for almost 20 years now.

So you've, you have grown up with cell phones in your life.

You've grown up with tablets.

The internet of course was there from the jump.

Like there is not, there's really no technology that you were.

You had you discovered it was all there as you grew up.

It's true

Yeah, and I I had a phone when I was like nine years old.

I had a phone very very young

Was it a smartphone or was it one of those phones where it just had your parents number in it?

It was a smartphone.

Whoa.

Yeah, so whoa, you know, your parents did not want

to talk to you They did but they were you know, I felt like I was kind of a big shot, you know in seventh and eighth grade but You know it was it was fun

Okay, so someone who has grown up ensconced in this technology that we all know today and for me I mean I feel very lucky to know the life before all those what for you is your favorite device before the invention of the cell phone

from what I can remember and I had my brother can attest I I was really busy an older or younger brother two years younger two years younger So we were about the same, you know, we had the same interest and I would say

The DS, the DS was one of the, I love the DS, it's my

favorite.

Is it Nintendo?

Nintendo DS, yes.

Okay, all right, all right, I just want to make sure.

Excellent, all right.

So that was what you had before you had a cell phone then, you're saying.

So like for you, it's not.

Before the cell phone.

It's just before you got a cell phone

exactly That's the only thing

I can

remember everything else is kind of I can't remember anything else other than that DS and then instantly to the cell phone and then into you know video games and other things like that But um yeah, I would say the DS was I mean I played a bunch of Mario on that thing.

It was it was great.

It was great.

It was

I, so I did not grow up.

Okay.

So, well, I, I grew up with video games.

Of course, I grew up in the, in I would say the golden age of video games because I remember as a kid, we had the Atari system.

There was Coleco and then you moved into the NES and then into, you know, the Sega Genesis, the super NES and 64.

Like I've watched these systems grow over the years.

I am.

bum that I didn't get more into them.

I was not a video game.

I'm still not a video game person.

The only thing I can brag about, it's not even a brag, but we have one of those Nintendo emulators that they put out officially.

Like they're the classic, if they call it, it's tiny little box.

It's got like a thousand games on there.

And if I plug it in, I'm only playing the following games, Mario, Super Mario Brothers, Super Mario Brothers two.

Super Mario Brothers 3, Double Dragon.

Wow.

Oh, and Contra.

But Contra is a difficult game on the Nintendo game.

Like, you die once and you're done.

It's really weird.

But those five games, everything else, I'm like, that's fine.

Castlevania here and there, but mostly those games because those are the games I played as a kid before we had cell phones.

I will, you know, I did get a Sega game gear, which was their version of the Game Boy handheld system.

And I played Mortal Kombat like no one's business at an age where I should not have been playing Mortal Kombat.

I think I was probably like 11 years old when I got that thing.

Or I mean, it was, it was very, I was as a graphic game, very graphic game.

So.

We did get some messages here on the text line.

Cam and Appleton says the N64, the Nintendo 64, I played my first video game on it around four.

Turrock 2, The Seeds of Evil.

I did, the N64 still has some cool games on there.

I know that people still enjoy GoldenEye on that one, the James Bond GoldenEye.

Are you a video gamer?

am, I am.

Yes, I would say I am.

What's your what's your device of choice who

I would say I like the PlayStation consoles So I like I back in the day I had a ps3 and I played a lot on the ps3 I know now they have a ps5 what when I don't have but I am a big ps

gamer.

I love

your PlayStation.

You're you're a PlayStation.

Yeah.

All right.

Cool.

Roger and Stevens point texting in saying the compact disc player, which is interesting.

That's very interesting.

Roger that you say that because we talked about this a while ago that people Dom's age are and my nephew who it turns 20.

Oh my gosh, he turns.

Oh my goodness.

He turns 22 this year.

Borg.

No, he turns 21.

That's right.

No, he turns 21.

Sorry.

I gave myself a year.

But he for Christmas asked for CDs and he had no interest.

He had no like demand that they were new.

So I bought him a ton of you CDs and he was so excited because people and correct me if I'm wrong, Dom, because I am old enough to be all of your fathers apparently.

But the there's a there is a desire to go back to a day of compact discs.

A lot of kids are getting flip phones.

They're celebrating like the older technology as they tend to do.

But CDs are something I did not think would be coming back because to me, one, they were expensive regardless.

They're cumbersome.

They're terrible to move.

My nephew loves having his CDs.

I'm like, I'm never helping you move because a box of CDs weighs about a thousand pounds.

But do you have any desire in celebrating the old ways or are you

Firmly ensconced in you know mp3 on your phone that kind of thing the convenience of Of not carrying you know a book of CDs in your car

I would say I'm big on convenience like I do like those you know Spotify just stuff in my car, but I do I do have some like vinyls that I use every now

and then that's

something that I use More so but in terms of CDs

I don't know, I have a few friends that just like to collect them.

I know a few friends

just

like to collect them and never play them.

Wait, collect CDs or albums?

CDs.

Yeah, CDs.

Okay, all right.

I'm sorry.

All right, all right, all right.

I wish Pete was here for this.

See, I know people, I am a person, okay, I will admit this.

I own...

I don't own a lot of vinyl I used to own a lot of vinyl and then I got rid of most of it because I didn't listen to it and I hated lugging it around I don't like If I had my druthers and this is don't don't if I okay I'll admit this if I had my druthers Dom if my wife and I decided to move I would just collapse our house in and on itself and just start over I don't like moving

I don't like packing things.

I don't like moving things.

I don't like lifting things.

I'm fine with doing small, but like the, the task of moving is huge.

And when it comes to things like books, CDs, albums, those come, become very heavy objects.

And if you're not listening to those things, the albums or the CDs, there's really, in my opinion, no point in owning them.

I don't see it as a collector.

Like I get it.

There are people out there who love collecting stuff.

And I understand the collection of albums that I understand as well But I don't understand owning CDs and not playing them that because to me people who own vinyl own vinyl for maybe an investment You maybe have some expensive ones in your collection album art that people put in frames on your wall But I've never heard anyone say out loud.

I collect CDs because I just

Like it

yeah, and my friend that does collect the CDs he's kind of a I don't want to out him here But he's kind of a hoarder like he kind of he gets a mass amount of CDs and they're all over his house And I'm yeah, I just I don't know I agree.

Are you

stepping over said CDs in his room?

Yes,

I am

he's never playing him them.

No, he is not it is it's a crime it is

That's so interesting to me.

Is he go?

Okay.

I'm now I'm more into this before we get before before I delve deeper into the business of your friends that is clearly not mine.

Let's see here.

Roger said a compact disc player Scott on the text line listening on them listening on WMDX says, I loved my iPod.

That was something that's, you know, that's very interesting because the iPod seemed to like this revolutionary piece of technology.

You were born in 2003.

Okay, so you were born after the invention and the invention of the iPod.

When they showed that thing for the first time, it was a mixture of, oh my gosh, this is amazing.

And oh my gosh, how is this possible?

Because the whole thing was, we're going to give you this.

thing that looks like a pack of cigarettes, and there'll be 500 songs in here, and you can just walk around.

You remember how you love a Walkman?

Imagine a Walkman times 100.

And to me, that was technology that was not only unbeatable, but also, this will never go away.

And then one day, Apple just says, yeah, we're going to stop making them.

We don't need to make them anymore.

You can put them on your phone.

Basically, your phone is basically an iPod.

And it just, to me, that iPod was so...

maybe it speaks to my brain part of the fun was loading it

was

putting it putting the music you want especially the smaller ones when you only got a certain amount like at towards the end they're like hey put 30 million songs on there like okay i really just have a hundred on here and like curate my own little playlist and whatnot but i do miss the ipod i really really do it was a that was a great piece of technology uh erin zahmer is from listening on mass and he's our buddy here at civic media on em

W MDX.

He says, I had an NES from my parents and that was awesome.

That was an awesome period.

I especially loved duck hunt and with the zapper.

Yeah.

That was any power glove people out there.

Huh?

Don, did you ever enjoy the power glove?

What is the power glove that?

I don't know.

Oh, mother glory.

So they invented a toy to go to a toy and they used a movie to sell the toy The power glove was basically a controller that went on a glove and you could play again So like you could play a game with the glove the the glove didn't really take off because it was very difficult to create games that were Exclusively used with the glove that was beyond just throwing things and it basically

It came and went.

It was very, very popular.

They made a movie back in the late 80s called The Wizard where they used it as a...

a merchandising device, but it kind of came and went.

But if you can find one now, they're hilarious because they look like what the 80s thinks the future looks like.

But we'll talk more about it on the other side along with the handy tip.

I've got some more text messages coming in.

If you want to let us know what's your favorite device before the invention of the cell phone, let us know in celebration of National Retro Day, 855-752-4842, 855-756.

Leave a comment on that live stream you are listening and or watching.

Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach here on the Civic Media Network.

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Welcome back to Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

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You've got me, Greg Bach, at Radio Park in Racine.

You've got Dom Lee in Madison at WMDX, the Civic Media World Headquarters.

And we are so happy that you are joining us this evening on this wonderful Friday.

The weekend is here.

We're getting closer and closer to the days getting longer, to the weather getting warmer.

Before we know it it'll be spring before we know it.

It'll be summer and then we'll be like it's so hot Just can't win in Wisconsin, but we're so happy that you're here with us today if you want to be part of the conversation 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5 civic leave a comment on the live stream We are on we are on Facebook YouTube and the platform we still call Twitter the question of the night was what was your favorite device?

before the invention of the cell phone because today is national retro day.

We've been hearing from everybody on the text line and the live stream.

Aaron Zommers also reaches out on WMDX to say, my favorite device has to be the iPod Classic.

I loved having a dedicated music device.

I really miss having an iPod.

I do as well.

I really, really do.

I wish I'd still had one.

I will say this.

I think I owned three or four iPods in my entire life.

And I think I lost two of them in my entire life, like just straight up.

Gone.

And I know exactly where... Well, I didn't lose them.

I know where I left them.

There's a huge difference.

Huge difference, but...

Point is, we'd love to hear from you on what your favorite pieces of technology, favorite devices, a lot of video games, finding out that people like to collect CDs for collector's sake.

That's very weird, but okay, live your life, journey, your journey.

Also, just to let you all know, on Monday, we're going to be back here from five to seven PM.

We will be welcoming Dr. Mariel Borowitz, who is a professor at Georgia Tech, talking about space policy.

And then we will be joined by multimedia journalist, Victoria Davis, to talk about her.

stories, we will be having a great conversation.

Then Pete will be back.

It will be wonderful.

And again, if you ever want to be part of the show, call our text.

If you ever want to catch up with the show, if you want to download episodes like a podcast, go to civicmedia.us slash shows.

You can look for Nightlight with Pete Schwab and Greg Bach.

You can find our entire library of 2.0 episodes, all soon to be five episodes.

Actually technically 10 episodes, if you think about it, because we released two per day.

first hour and second hour.

So there's a lot of catching up to do if you're just joining us this evening.

Plus you can go and get the Civic Media app downloaded on your phone or your device.

You can take us anywhere in the world.

You can listen to the shows.

You can listen to music, get your news.

You can also find your favorite stations and listen to any one of our Civic Media stations.

It's all right there on the Civic Media app.

Plus you can call, text, leave a voice message and

participate in any text-to-ing contest we may be having in the very near future.

So stay tuned for that information as well.

Dumb.

First week, almost done.

What do you think?

I, I, well, I think this, I think this was the best show.

Don't hurt my feelings.

Don't worry.

Oh.

Yeah.

Ooh.

Want to know

why?

Why?

I'm not going

to, I'm not going

to.

You're going to sign

it.

You might know why.

Dude, don't do this to me.

All right, man.

I'm new here, too.

All right.

I'm not trying to find sides here.

I'm going to find sides.

I'm going to find sides with the guys whose name is on the billboard next to mine.

Please.

Bro.

I'll throw you under the bus.

I'm just kidding.

Please don't.

Please.

No, no.

I would never do that to you.

But, you know, we've had fun.

We're going to have more fun.

We're going to keep moving through.

We're going to have great conversations.

It's been very good time.

hanging out with you and Pete and having great guests so far.

I mean, my goodness, we had the mayor of Milwaukee tonight.

Yeah.

you didn't hear that interview, go to civic media.us slash shows download.

Listen, but now it's time for the handy tip of the night

tip of the day.

Ah, it's tip of the day.

My apologies.

Branding.

Uh, this one comes all the way from, uh, the group of, of, of burger slingers named McDonald's.

So.

In my lifetime, I've seen a lot of different products coming out of this company.

I've seen the McLean burger.

I've seen, you know, various versions of the Big Mac.

This one here, I feel like is... I don't know what the point is.

I'll tell you what it is.

It's called the Big Arch, which...

Sounds like someone's uncle.

It sounds like a guy who drinks at a Wisconsin bar at the end of the bar And he's he always for some no matter what day of the of the what day what time of day it is he has a cigarette in his hand Even though there's no smoking allowed, but you don't tell big arch not to smoke in the bar It is called the big arch and the tagline from this company is it's like your favorite McD burgers in one burger It's like three patties every single sauce every kind of cheese and I'm pretty sure it has

Deep fried onions on a poppy seed slash sesame seed bun.

Oh Who asked for this hmm?

Did you ask for this Tom?

Not me.

I mean, I couldn't even eat that even if I tried

it It looks like it comes in a bigger but like it looks like it looks like a bigger Mac It's called the big arch and my only tip really basically is before you before you do before you go into this if you want to enjoy it great

But don't eat this burger with something to prove don't eat this burger say I can take on the big arch because even if you eat it all you've lost Because I feel like this burger is going to create a lot of problems for you internally They'll make you feel things within your stomach that will make you feel bad So if you're gonna handle the big arch, maybe cut it in half Enjoy half now enjoy half later, but there's no reason why you have to enjoy all of the arch Just take half the arch

Then that's my handy tip for the night.

Tip of the day!

Moderation.

There's nothing wrong with moderation, especially when you're dealing with what I think has about 32,000 calories.

If you do enjoy the Big Arch, please let us know.

It's available on March 3rd around the country.

I'm sure we'll be hearing new stories about it.

The Big Arch.

I was not paid by McDonald's for this story.

All right, we got to get out of here.

So on behalf of Pete, even though he's not here, I'm still going to do it.

I want to thank Dom.

I want to thank Tucker.

Traffic and engineering for all of your work.

Without you, nothing works at all.

Our microphones are switched off.

I want to thank everyone who called and texted.

Left a comment on the live stream.

I want to thank Dr. Oh my goodness, the name.

The name is right there.

Dr. Keller, Dr. Richard C Keller, as well as Mayor Cavalier Johnson for being our guests tonight.

And also remember, next week, we'll be talking to Dr. Mary Alborowitz from Georgia Tech, as well as Victoria Davis, who is a multi-medial journalist about the story she is working on.

We hope you have a great weekend.

Don't go anywhere.

There's still plenty of programming here on civic media.

So stay tuned, stay informed, stay close.

Have a great weekend.

Good night,

Wisconsin.

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