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Our daily cleansers made cleaner.
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Being “squeaky clean” might actually be a sign that soap is stripping away the skin’s natural oils and microbiome, leading to more skincare products to compensate. In this episode, our host Janet Kraus talks with Eli Halliwell, co-founder of Hairstory and founder of Sans Savon, to discuss how to improve on the foundational hygiene product.
Eli breaks down the simple chemistry of amphiphilic molecules (the “oil-loving, water-loving” compounds behind every cleanser) and explains why foam might be a red flag for over-stripping, ineffective cleaning. It’s a fascinating look at how questioning our everyday products can lead to a more sustainable, less wasteful routine.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- Why modern soap and shampoo may be over-cleaning your skin and hair.
- The science of amphiphilic molecules.
- What the skin microbiome is, and why stripping it causes irritation, dandruff, and eczema flare-ups.
- How Sans Savon developed non-foaming cleansers using micellar technology.
- The role of upcycled ingredients in their sustainable formulation.
About Eli Halliwell:
Eli Halliwell is a seasoned beauty-brand executive and entrepreneur with three decades of experience across multiple industries. A graduate of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Halliwell has dedicated the longest and most recent chapter of his career to revolutionizing personal care by challenging the traditional concept of “squeaky clean” soap.
Meet the Host:
Janet Kraus: I’m Janet, a serial start-up founder and CEO, twin-girl mom, and wife to a fun and funny guy. I am on a mission to build healthier thinking in young people, stop toxic division, spotlight hopeful climate action, and advocate for safe AI.
Transcript
Janet Kraus: Hi, and welcome back to Bluedot Living's podcast, where we imagine if innovators and change-makers might actually be making progress toward a healthier and more sustainable world, because that's what we want, and the good news is they are.
Today, we're gonna learn how one entrepreneur has spent the better part of his career zigging when others were zagging, and questioning assumptions that were believed to be true for years, concepts that made sense until they didn't. So I was taught, I don't know if you were, as a little kid, when I washed my hands and washed anything, you know, you got the soap in your hands, and you rolled it over until it made a nice creamy lather, and then you really, really washed and washed until you felt like you got all the grime and all the bad stuff off.
And when you were done, your skin kinda felt tight, like a little squeaky. And then people would put lotion on you. Either you would put it on yourself, or your mother would lather it on you because you needed to put the moisture back in, I guess. So as it turns out, this is an assumption that today's beauty brand executive stopped to question: Is squeaky clean really healthy?
Eli Halliwell, a graduate of my alma mater, the Stanford Graduate School of Business, has spent the last 30 years launching and scaling and transforming businesses in many industries, but most recently and for the longest, has been focused on changing how people wash their hands, their hair, and their body.
Welcome, Eli.
Eli Halliwell: Thank you so much, Janet.
Janet Kraus: As I go through learning about all the ways in which innovators are figuring out how to make products better and supply chains better and business better, the thing I didn't really think I was going to have to question was soap.
I mean, you go into pretty much any health food store, right? And it's been there even in the crunchiest place in Vermont, and there is soap, and you sort of smell it, and you're told it's good for you. And you've built an entire company around questioning whether we should think if soap is the best way to clean our bodies.
So tell me, why should I challenge that assumption? What's going on here that I didn't know?
Eli Halliwell: Well, I wouldn't blame you if you didn't, because the advent of… Well, people have been cleaning their bodies with versions of soap for a long, long time. They figured that out a long time ago. But modern soap came to be in the last 100 or so years, and I guess in the late 1800s, we discovered that if you washed your hands, you would live a lot longer, right?
We discovered germs, bacteria, and it really changed the course of humanity. And you can actually map how many people were on the planet to that discovery. It just took off. It was also the Industrial Revolution. There were a bunch of other good things happening.
Janet Kraus: Yeah.
Eli Halliwell: But life expectancy went up when we stopped exposing ourselves to dangerous things all the time.
And the logical thought that would come from that is the cleaner, the better, right? Like, clean is saving lives, cleaner is better, so let's just get as clean as we can. And that logic makes perfect sense when you're cleaning, you know, hospital surgery rooms, when you're cleaning your dishes, when you're cleaning your carpet or your car, and it just doesn't really apply to your body.
And unfortunately, all of the innovations that we discovered to clean effectively and cheaply were basically just applied not just to all those other categories, but to your body as well. So the same kind of ingredients that are the detergents that clean your dishes and your clothing are used to clean your hair, your scalp, and your skin.
And it turns out that is a problem. And you don't have to take my word for it. I have a couple of stats that I like to use. One is that 71% of people self-report as having sensitive skin. And personally, I find that impossible, right? Evolution doesn't work that way. When everybody would have a core — the largest organ in their body would be flawed in a major way that makes them itchy, irritated, and miserable, it just doesn't happen.
Janet Kraus: Right, that's not the way evolution works. If it did, yeah, that doesn't make sense. I get it.
Eli Halliwell: Yeah. So we must be doing something that's creating that. There's some external impact and influence that's making that happen. And I started my journey on this with hair and scalp. That's when I first sort of discovered the idea that maybe we're over-cleaning. And in hair and scalp, it makes perfect sense because your hair is producing oil all the time, and when you strip it away, your body responds by producing oil in one of the oilier parts of your body.
And that creates a vicious cycle. And you already know if you clean your hair that you have to wash your hair with shampoo, and then you have to use conditioner to basically add more moisture back to it. And then on top of that, you need styling products to dirty it up again.
Janet Kraus: So you clean it, then you moisturize it, then you make it dirty so that it will do something.
Eli Halliwell: Exactly. Well, so it'll look good.
Janet Kraus: So it'll look good. Yeah, so it doesn't look like straw.
Eli Halliwell: It's awesome for haircare companies, and they're selling you extra products to solve a problem that they're creating.
Janet Kraus: Yeah, that's what I wanted. Yeah. You said it. You're actually saying what I, as I went through this, was like, “Oh, so we make the problem so we can fix the problem, so we have to…” Yeah. OK, keep going.
Eli Halliwell: Yeah. It's a very core element of capitalism. So what we do is we have this vicious cycle, and it turns out if you just change the beginning part of it, if you just clean, but you clean more gently in a way that works with your body, not against it, then you break that whole cycle and everything gets better.
Janet Kraus: Well, you know, what's really interesting, I'm gonna pause you for a second. The place where I realized this idea that we were over-cleaning, I started to have the a-ha moment was, and this, I think lots of people had different a-ha moments, was in COVID. Because I washed my hair less because I didn't have to, and then it didn't get as dirty.
And then, when I would wash it, then it would be like straw again. And I was like, “Oh, I actually like it better.” Well, not dirty, but less clean. So this is kind of, I think, where you're going with this.
Eli Halliwell: So we in the industry call that day two hair on day one, right? Some people wash their hair every day, some people wash their hair every third day, and day two is usually the best day because it's sort of gotten lived in again.
It's gotten a little bit of the oil back into it, and that oil that isn't weighing it down and making it greasy is giving it body and shape and movement. So, you know, I spent a bunch of years before starting Sans Savon, it was seven years doing Hair Story in this industry and learning and really becoming a believer and an advocate of this new way to clean your scalp and your hair.
And then I realized that I'm cleaning my body with soap and it's gotta be doing a lot of the same stuff. You know, there are some interesting books out there that are exploring, some movements of people who are exploring, stopping showering and not using any soap on their body at all, and they get to a stasis they claim where they're not smelly anymore and everything.
That's not what I was talking about. That's not what we're talking about.
Janet Kraus: You're not going there.
Eli Halliwell: No. But when you start looking at the science behind it and the experience of it, we are over-cleaning our bodies, too, and it's just not as visible as it is with hair. Like the cool thing about switching to a cleansing cream, which is what our Hair Story's product is, is that your hair starts looking better and you're like, “Wow, I love this benefit.”
But your scalp is healthier, you're less itchy. People with dandruff say it goes away. There's all these other benefits. On your body, it's harder to tell when you're… I mean, you can tell when your skin is dry but it doesn't have that same sort of immediate visual impact. And so we go through life just being like, “Eh, I guess my skin's just a little dry. It's a little itchy. I need to put some cream on.” And the most important part that's invisible is that we don't see our microbiome really getting impacted the most.
Janet Kraus: I've learned so much about gut microbiome recently, and so when I read this in your… I was like, “Oh, this makes sense.” You said something that kinda piqued my interest.
Am I using the same kind of detergent on my skin or on my hair that is in dish cleaning detergent? You said it's the same thing. Is that so?
Eli Halliwell: Pretty much, yeah.
Janet Kraus: Pretty much.
Eli Halliwell: The way that you clean anything, if I can divert for a little science.
Janet Kraus: Yeah. I'd like a little science. Yes, please.
Eli Halliwell: Right. So the way that you clean anything is with what are called amphiphilic molecules. And amphiphilic molecules have… They're both. Amphi means both. They have an oil-loving side and a water-loving side.
And so you put this solution on whatever needs to be cleaned, and the oil-loving side grabs all the dirt, the oil, the grease, the styling product, whatever it is that needs to be cleaned away, and it attaches to it. And then you have to rinse. You have to rinse to clean. So the water then comes through, and the water-loving side grabs onto the water and pulls everything attached to the oil-loving side with it as it goes down the drain.
And that's the way you clean floors, dishes, and, you know, your hair, scalp, and body. And so the difference here is that it is the cheapest way… If you think about, you know, what is the most water-loving thing that you interact with, it would be salt and sugar, right? They put it in the water, and it just bloops and disappears, right?
It just goes right in with the water. And that's because those compounds are very hydrophilic. They love water. And so when you hear about you shouldn't use SLS, well, SLS is sodium lauryl sulfate. Sodium, you'll see all of these different products for the haircare category and for the body start with a sodium something or other, and that's because that side is really, really water-loving.
And what happens when it's super water-loving is it's very good at pulling everything with it. It's a very strong bond. And the technologies that we use for cleansing at Hair Story, and we use different technologies for Sans Savon, but they're related. They have amphiphilic molecules. They have a very strong and long oil-loving side.
The water-loving side is weaker, and what that means is it goes and grabs onto stuff, but when the water comes through, the water-loving side is only strong enough, that connection to the water is only strong enough to pull things away that are relatively loosely attached.
Janet Kraus: Hmm.
Eli Halliwell: And that makes all the difference. So your natural oils that coat your scalp that are there to protect it are not ripped away. And same on your body. And so that balance that you're trying to get there of getting the stuff gone that you wanna get gone and also not stripping everything away is easy to do if you have the right cleansing agents.
And the clue to know whether it is stripping or not is foam. That is the visual clue that the ingredients that enable the water tension create the bubbles, we call it the threshold over which you're stripping. And so the shorthand is… because there are a bunch of detergents out there that are less stripping, right?
So they're called gentle detergents, and they usually are glucosides instead of sodium. So they're using sugar instead of salt.
Janet Kraus: Instead of salt? Uh-huh.
Eli Halliwell: They still foam, and they're still stripping. They're still creating that challenge. And all of the products that we use, when you use New Wash from Hair Story, you'll put it on and it does not foam.
When you use Sans Savon, it does not foam. And yet I come in from cleaning the barbecue and I've got grease all over my hands. I just pump some Sans Savon on my hands and it's gone.
Janet Kraus: OK. I'm very excited for this because I've got knuckles that are literally, like, dry to the crack all the time, and when you go to then put lotion on, it hurts,right? So if I can figure out a way to wash…
Eli Halliwell: Then you're like, “Do I have to go — I don't wanna go to the bathroom again. I'm gonna wait like an extra hour to go to the bathroom because then I've gotta wash my hands
Janet Kraus: I gotta wash my hands — exactly.
Eli Halliwell: And then I gotta put more cream on. So you're creating a vicious…
Janet Kraus: And I don't like the feeling of squeaky hands, but I like clean hands, so I wash my hands a lot. OK. Let's go back now, and I wanna hear about microbiomes. Now that we know what we're doing that's bad, that strips, tell me what the microbiome…
Eli Halliwell: Yeah. So the microbiome is essential to your health, right? So you talked about gut health. There's a gut microbiome. There's also a microbiome all over the outside of your body, and that is a combination of bacteria and fungus and even little mites that are there that have evolved, co-evolved with us to take care of us.
They are sensitive to being stripped away. And when they are, the problem is that it's basically a free-for-all for who gets to come in and populate that nice warm armpit. And what happens sometimes is that the wrong stuff comes in and it edges out everyone else. So when you have a healthy microbiome, all the little guys are in there.
They're living happily. They're eating off of the stuff that they're eating off of your body, and they're not overproducing. They're just at a nice stasis. And any other invasive stuff that comes in, there's no room, right? They've colonized. They're there. There's no way that something that is going to be irritating or some bad fungus is gonna be able to grow.
When you use soap, you're literally stripping it all away, and it's just like, who's gonna come next? So that is where you start getting irritation, you get redness, you get itchiness.
Janet Kraus: You made a statement that 70% of us have some form of skin irritation. You know, I have one kid who from a very early age had eczema, and the solution, which was crazy, was, like, much less bathing. Was like, just keep her, like, just loosely, carefully get the dirt off, but let her skin be her skin, because as soon as you tried to do anything that disrupted the balance, the eczema would just flare.
Eli Halliwell: Yeah. Well, the woman who was the formulator and inspiration for the original New Wash formula at Hair Story had such bad psoriasis that she would get injections in her scalp — steroid injections. And she was convinced that it felt worse when she washed her hair, and she avoided using shampoo as much as she could. And it literally changed her entire life and experience.
Janet Kraus: Yeah. Well, I mean, when it goes from being an irritation to being psoriasis or eczema, it's just a — I mean, it's a living nightmare when your major organ is in massive distress. So what was the process you went through to figure out what this formulation would be that is better?
Eli Halliwell: I had wanted to come up with a solution for the body, and it needed to be relatively cost-effective, too, because you're washing your body a lot and it's more coverage than you have with your hair. And it already is expensive to make New Wash, right? So I was already a little worried.
We had been working with a cutting-edge formulator from Canada with Hair Story trying to figure out a couple different technologies we could use for Hair Story, and it hadn't worked out. And so I reached out to him a couple years later, and I said, “Hey, you are such an innovative guy. I wanna see if we can create something for the body. And I know that you're checking all of the new technologies that come out. Is there anything new that we can talk about?” And he said, “Yes, I think we can actually do it now.” And what's interesting… I don't know if you've heard of micellar water.
Janet Kraus: Yes, I actually, my children told me about micellar water. I now use it to take off my makeup and for a light cleanse. I hope that's good. Is that good?
Eli Halliwell: Yeah, so it's effective enough to clean makeup off your face, and it is not stripping your face, right? I mean, I used to use Ivory soap on my face as a kid. That was not smart, right? So this is now a way to have an effective cleanse, but that's not stripping.
And so basically, it's an oil-based cleansing system, and we use that—we're the first company to use that kind of technology on your hands and body. So that was his big idea, that we would use that and we would figure out how to get it cost-effective enough. So we have micellar technology that we're using everywhere, which is different from what Hair Story does.
And we also added in—there's been a lot of innovation in natural deodorants. And we added in the same technology that they're using in natural deodorants as an antimicrobial system that was going to be strong enough to get rid of the things you wanna get rid of that are dangerous or that make you stinky, because that's what we're focused on, but not going to destroy your microbiome.
And then to make sure your microbiome is OK, we added in some prebiotics too, to feed your microbiome.
Janet Kraus: I had read on the website that it has some particular smell. Is that actually something, a smell that's produced in Canada.
Eli Halliwell: Yeah, yeah. Right around the time that we were creating this business, we got a second home in Canada in a very remote region called Charlevoix, which is beautiful, right on the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Janet Kraus: I've watched a little of your Instagram. I kind of want to go there now.
Eli Halliwell: It's a really pretty spot, and it's all in the boreal forest. And when you get out of the car at this house, it's just overwhelming, the smell of… It's like this sweet, piney, cedary, beautiful smell. And so as part of creating these products, we wanted to make sure we added in a sense of an experience that's really nice, too. And part of that experience is the smell.
So we use natural essential oils that are from that kind of boreal forest, and it literally smells—the products smell like that region. And also, we were gonna mention before…
Janet Kraus: Oh, yeah. I want to, yeah. Because I had read you should be ready for a slightly different experience than what you're used to. Go for it. Tell us what it is.
Eli Halliwell: Yeah. So actually, we just had a review come through the other day that was like, “I didn't know if I liked this at first because it was so different, but now I'm crazy in love with these products.” And so when you use Sans Savon products, it's going to feel strange because there's no foam.
It's not quite a lotion. You're putting something on that's very liquidy. It's not as viscous as a lot of the gels that you'd find out there. And it goes on and spreads all over your body, and it’s slick, and it just feels sort of silky.
And then when you rinse it off, you can tell that it's going off your body, but there's still a really nice little slip to your skin that's kind of like when you've put on moisturizer but without any tackiness.
And then you get out of the shower, you finish washing your hands, and you towel off, and you don't even notice it's gone. Like, you don't notice anything, but your skin feels soft.
Janet Kraus: Now here's a question. You told me you know all the beauty executives. Does the beauty industry know that they've been selling us this doom loop for a long time? And do you scare them?
Eli Halliwell: I think they do know, and they like the idea that — the reason to have more and more products, so it's a multiplier for them, right? Instead of just selling you one product, they can sell you three, they can sell you four. They now added a mask on top of everything, right?
There's all these other things that are basically solving the same core problem that is started by over-cleaning your skin. What's so fascinating is when we first came out, every big hair company came out with a knockoff. And they couldn't sell any.
Janet Kraus: Really?
Eli Halliwell: Because what we were doing is we were saying, “Shampoo is the problem and New Wash is the solution.”
Janet Kraus: They can't say that.
Eli Halliwell: So they're like, “You can use this sometimes if you want. It's sort of like an alternative.” But they just couldn't figure it out.
Janet Kraus: Like every third day, try this instead.
Eli Halliwell: And so fast-forward, we're 11 years in, and we still own the entire market.
Janet Kraus: This is where I hope our growing listenership has an impact because it's this wonderful cycle that if people hear about it, they try it, you get bigger.
Eli Halliwell: Yeah. Actually, I'm eager for competition.
Janet Kraus: I bet you are.
Eli Halliwell: We're creating a category, a new category of, you know, soapless cleansing.
Janet Kraus: I had a question though. So we didn't really touch on this, but I'm sure it's there in multiple ways. The way in which you're making this also has, I'm sure, as everything does, impact on the environment, and what are the ways in which this is more positively impacting — or not impacting the environment? And does it, does it touch on climate change at some point?
Eli Halliwell: Yeah. I mean, I think one of my core things that I always say to employees is, economic commerce creates waste. Like, you have to just acknowledge that.
Janet Kraus: Yep, you do.
Eli Halliwell: And there's this recent movement for the people calling zero, zero waste, and I'm like, “I don't understand how you're saying that.” Like, you're maybe offsetting.
So keeping that in mind, we do everything we can to make as low an impact as possible. So we start with using, I think it's 99% natural ingredients, naturally derived. So you know, stuff is coming from a healthy place. If you're a scientist, you're sort of like, “Eh, everything's a chemical,” right?
It's a molecule. What does that really mean? So, but it's an effort there. We have a decent percentage of upcycled ingredients, and that's a relatively new word and trend in the business that I think, I hope, becomes more common. And basically what you're doing is you're using waste products as your inputs.
Janet Kraus: Yeah, I've heard a lot about this in other places. Just talked to somebody today who's using the fabrics from old, old clothing to make new clothing, particularly taking adult clothing and making children's clothing, 'cause you can actually take out the parts that are worn and make it smaller, which I think is super cool. So tell me about upcycling here.
Eli Halliwell: Well, we use upcycled avocados that were not gonna be good enough to be sold. We use grapeseed oil — comes from grape seeds that have already been turned into wine. You know, just stuff like that. Our scents come from clippings from Christmas trees.
Janet Kraus: Great, because I mean, all that waste, right, if it's decomposing the wrong way becomes carbon. So yeah, if you can find another way to utilize that, that's fabulous.
Eli Halliwell: So that's sort of the ingredient side, and then there's always the packaging, which is where you can have probably the most impact. And there, all of our bottles—it was interesting. We started off thinking, “Oh, we want glass bottles because A, they're beautiful, and B, they're not plastic.” And as soon as you do any research: glass takes up a lot more energy to create. It lasts a lot longer if people use it over and over again. But it's also much more energy, and so where we ended up is we have 100% PCR plastic bottles that are literally like many, many fold thicker than your normal plastic bottle that you would throw away, and they are our forever bottles.
So you're meant to keep this bottle. It's a beautiful proprietary design, and it's gonna last a long time sitting there in your shower or on your kitchen sink. And we sell pouches with minimal plastic to fill them up.
Janet Kraus: Love, love it. Yep, I've switched to doing that for all my products in my kitchen. Have the forever plastic bottle and get the refills, so I think that's brilliant. And then you're also a public benefit corporation. Tell me about that.
Eli Halliwell: Yeah. So, when we created Hair Story, one of my good friends was friends with Yvon Chouinard. The founder of Patagonia. I was really nervous to meet him. You know, you have this idea of what your heroes are gonna be like, and then you meet him and you're like, “Oh, gosh, he's sort of arrogant or…” It's happened to me a bunch of times, and Yvon is exactly who you were hoping he was gonna be. Like, it's so wonderful. And so my friend was friends with him, and Yvon started 1% for the Planet.
So early with Hair Story, we decided to join 1% for the Planet, and we've had a great time figuring out which nonprofits to invest in. We have focused on water-based issues because we're about cleaning your body, and people use water. And by the way, you use a lot less water when you wash your hair just one time than with shampoo and then conditioner.
Janet Kraus: Sure, of course.
Eli Halliwell: And I also personally am just concerned about water in general and the amount of it and the quality of it and everything else. And so when we decided to start Sans Savon, we wanted to basically build that into our DNA. And there's this new thing called the public benefit corporation that you can start off right from scratch saying, “This is what we do.” So that's what we did.
Janet Kraus: Oh, I love that. Oh, I just love that so much. Yeah, pretty much all the companies that we've been highlighting have been part of 1% for the Planet, one of the reasons, and our listeners know this, that Bluedot was created is because one in four people are committed to healthier, more sustainable living.
But greenwashing took over for a long time, and that's a problem. You know, you just put it in brown packaging and put green lettering on it, and people suddenly think it's good when it's not. And secondly, it's sometimes hard to make the change if you don't believe that as a collective it will matter.
Like, when you're all by yourself making one little change, you're kinda like, “If I'm the only one doing it, does it matter?” And when you start to hear that lots of people are doing this, it feels like you have much more incentive and much more reward for doing it, and you feel better when you share it with other people.
And this 1% of the Planet is also true. All the companies that are doing this are connected to that. Just think about the ripple effects on so many nonprofits. It's really just a beautiful ecosystem that's being created. Very, very magical. So, I'd like to just switch now. I am sure that in addition to changing how you wash your hair and your body and your hands, you've made other changes.
And so one of the things we also like to do is to ask, because our listeners just like to hear, what are the two or three changes in your life that you've made, that you're consistent on, and that you feel like they're really moving the needle for you and your family?
Eli Halliwell: Well, a big one for us is just basically spending a lot more time in Canada in a beautiful remote place. It's really interesting spending time in another society, and they have a little bit of a different value system and people seem healthier there.
And even the food in the supermarket is noticeably different. Just the regular old supermarket, you get incredible fresh produce that is from the local farms, that is from the local fisheries. And that has been really life-changing to just get to be in that other environment where you're accessing that.
Janet Kraus: Wow. That's great. I will just call out for you to know, and also for others, one of the four co-hosts of Imagine If is Cleo Carney, and she's the daughter of Mark Carney, the prime minister of Canada. And so she often brings to our podcast just that perspective of, she came to the States and she's sort of…
It's just surprising that things that she took for granted are not true here. And I think we should be considerate of if we have the power to change what's expected, right? We can, if we lean into that we want different things, it is, well, still so far a democracy, and capitalism does respond to demand.
Eli Halliwell: Well, here's an example. You wanna know how often you can throw away your garbage, actual garbage at my house in Canada?
Janet Kraus: Yeah, tell me.
Eli Halliwell: Once every three weeks.
Janet Kraus: Really?
Eli Halliwell: The recycling comes once every two weeks, and the compost comes every week.
Janet Kraus: Oh my gosh, that's brilliant.
Eli Halliwell: So it forces you.
Janet Kraus: Forces you.
Eli Halliwell: It's gonna get full, so you're gonna go through, and anything that you can compost, you're gonna compost. And then all the stuff that you can't, you're like, “Oh gosh, I don't wanna have so much stuff because it's piling up.” It's amazing how that changes your behavior right there.
Janet Kraus: All right. So, I want you to take us home by ending us with our signature question, which is imagine if…
Eli Halliwell: All right. Well, it's not an easy time to be doing this kind of imagination, but I think that you have to go through the hardships to get to the real change. And so my imagine if would be that the outcome of all of the backward policies and the aggressive negativity toward the realization that this earth really is our home and that matters and that we can't just escape and go to Mars, is some level of action that has the energy behind it that can get many more people to join.
I think that we need a new political system that is going to be forward-looking in that way, and it needs to be a reaction against something that's trying to hold us back. People need to react against something negative, and I'm hopeful that we can just have this sort of political backsliding be that negative thing and not some huge environmental calamity.
Janet Kraus: Thank you, Eli. I really appreciate your time.
Eli Halliwell: No, it's been wonderful. It's really fun.
