Joe Rogan Experience #2209 - Paul Rosolie

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music) All right, we're rolling. Are you taking a selfie?

   4. PRPaul Rosolie0:14

      No, I'm- I'm just making sure that there's nothing completely retarded-looking about myself right now. (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:21

      (laughs) What could possibly be different than the way w- when you walked in here?

   6. PRPaul Rosolie0:25

      I have no idea. Dude, I'm- I'll tell you what. It's so much fun walking in here and not be, like, ready to throw up out of nerves. The first time, I walked out of here and I went, "Holy shit, I was actually nervous." I don't get nervous, but the first time I was. (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:38

      Not nervous now though?

   8. PRPaul Rosolie0:39

      No.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:39

      Good.

   10. PRPaul Rosolie0:40

       No.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:40

       Beautiful.

   12. PRPaul Rosolie0:40

       No.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:40

       Perfect.

   14. PRPaul Rosolie0:41

       No. No. No.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:41

       It's good to see you again.

   16. PRPaul Rosolie0:42

       Good to see you, man.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:43

       Every time I see him, like, I'm glad he's still alive.

   18. PRPaul Rosolie0:45

       (laughs)

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:45

       (laughs) It's like, where you live is so crazy.

   20. PRPaul Rosolie0:48

       Let me tell you, man.

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:49

       I don't understand why you continue to do it, but I guess you love it.

   22. PRPaul Rosolie0:52

       Uh, I have to do it.

   23. JRJoe Rogan0:54

       Yeah.

   24. PRPaul Rosolie0:54

       There's nothing else I can do at this point.

   25. JRJoe Rogan0:56

       How long do you think you're gonna stay out there for?

   26. PRPaul Rosolie0:58

       Until the mission's complete. Until the mission's complete. I mean, we have- I've- my whole life has been based around one goal, it's been protecting this river. So- and this year, we've just been experiencing miracles. What's happened in the last few months has been ch- life-changing on a level that- that, like, I didn't understand these things could happen. When Lex came down and everything that happened, we didn't think- y- you go out and you don't think that- that miraculous things are gonna happen, and there's been a- there's just been- there's just- we- we've actually been making strides towards notching wins in protecting this river, saving the Amazon. It's wild.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:34

       So, uh, w- is it because, of- you've become m- more high profile, you've got more support? Like, what has- what has been the change?

   28. PRPaul Rosolie1:41

       Well, I mean, coming on here helped a lot, I mean, the- first of all, just coming over here, like, three different people stopped me in the airport and were like, "Are you that guy from Joe Rogan?" And I was like, "Are you serious?"

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:50

       (laughs)

   30. PRPaul Rosolie1:50

       Like, I'm over there (laughs) , like, I'm not used to this. I live in the jungle so I don't, you know, I don't know, and then I come back here, and then people are like, "Dude, I know you. You're the jungle guy," and I'm like, "Oh, shit." Um, that's new for me, um, but ... So, really, the- the thing that happened recently was that, you know, so I went on Lex's show, I don't know, a year and a half ago and he said, uh, "I'm gonna come down to the Amazon," which everybody says.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. PRPaul Rosolie15:00

      would give $5, $10, $100 a month, we have this huge network of donors, and now we're able to get those wins. We see a threatened patch of forest? Boom, we grab it. Hire the loggers as rangers. Everybody wins.

   2. NANarrator15:11

      Mm-hmm.

   3. PRPaul Rosolie15:11

      And we're saving forest. This year, since the last time I saw you, we went from 55,000 acres to almost 100,000 acres. That's one-third of the way to protecting the 300,000 acres that we have to protect. So, we're one-third of the way through the goal.

   4. NANarrator15:25

      Wow.

   5. PRPaul Rosolie15:26

      That's all been happening in the last month and a half.

   6. NANarrator15:29

      That's incredible.

   7. PRPaul Rosolie15:30

      Miracles.

   8. NANarrator15:30

      So are you, y- when you're navigating, you're not using GPS, you're just using a compass?

   9. PRPaul Rosolie15:35

      Yeah.

   10. NANarrator15:36

       Why?

   11. PRPaul Rosolie15:37

       Uh, commitment. (laughs)

   12. NANarrator15:40

       What? (laughs)

   13. PRPaul Rosolie15:43

       (laughs) Because look, um, so I actually-

   14. NANarrator15:44

       Wouldn't you want the best tools for the job?

   15. PRPaul Rosolie15:47

       I agree with you, and if you're in a really... So when we go out to really remote places, when you just cannot fuck around, yes, we do bring like a Garmin GPS and we have the map, and-

   16. NANarrator15:55

       Well that sounds like you cannot fuck around if you guys are without water for two days.

   17. PRPaul Rosolie15:59

       We thought we were gonna go in the forest and go on a walk. 20 miles isn't, a 20-mile hike is nothing. We do that every day. We did not... The reason this forest hadn't been cut was because it was up and down and up and down, and denser than all the other forest, 'cause it's fucking ancient. And so we discovered it and how hard it was, and that's where I'm going, "Holy shit, we brought Lex Fridman out here."

   18. NANarrator16:18

       He's gonna die.

   19. PRPaul Rosolie16:19

       And he's gonna die.

   20. NANarrator16:20

       Of dehydration.

   21. PRPaul Rosolie16:20

       And he was looking at me. I mean, there were so many times during the trip where he looked at me and you could just tell, he was like, "Fuck you, dude."

   22. NANarrator16:25

       Boo.

   23. PRPaul Rosolie16:26

       "Just, just fuck you, man."

   24. NANarrator16:27

       What, how do you find water? You just stumble upon it? Is that-

   25. PRPaul Rosolie16:31

       I, I mean, from, from our base, you walk five minutes back into the jungle and there's a beautiful clear stream, and I, I drink straight out of the stream, no problem. Now, I wouldn't... For someone that comes to the jungle, I wouldn't say, "Just start doing that." I'd say, "Like, take a sip the first day, see how your stomach goes." I've been down there 20 years, so I'm fine. The locals-

   26. NANarrator16:47

       So, is it just your gut bacteria changes? Is that what it is?

   27. PRPaul Rosolie16:51

       I mean, some people, you take them... You know, you go to Italy and they get sick, you know? But like, you know, it's like pe- people, some people-

   28. NANarrator16:56

       Fragile folk.

   29. PRPaul Rosolie16:56

       Fragile folk.

   30. NANarrator16:58

       Yeah.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Roundup, microplastics, DDT. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      losing their crop. It's an herbicide, right? Yeah. Okay. Not a pesticide, an herbicide. But it's fucking terrible for you. Terrible. And 80% of people have it in their blood.

   2. PRPaul Rosolie30:11

      Roundup, microplastics, DDT.

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:13

      Yeah. Yeah.

   4. PRPaul Rosolie30:14

      And then in the... And then what was it? I think it was during the Gold Rush times that everybody was using lead to, to, to-... replug cans after they opened them and then, you know-

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:22

      Oh, yeah.

   6. PRPaul Rosolie30:22

      ... thousands of people died from lead poisoning before they figured it out.

   7. JRJoe Rogan30:25

      Shane Gillis has a great joke about George Washington. That George Washington's dentures were made out of lead.

   8. PRPaul Rosolie30:30

      Ugh.

   9. JRJoe Rogan30:31

      And that's why George Washington was such a fucking psycho. (laughs)

   10. PRPaul Rosolie30:34

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:34

       Yeah, like lead poisoning.

   12. PRPaul Rosolie30:35

       He wasn't brave. He was just insane.

   13. JRJoe Rogan30:38

       Um, I read that when they were talking about the amount of plastic that people find, like in, most men have, uh, plastic in their sperm, plastic in their, their testicles. You have plastic in your brain. And a lot of that plastic is, uh, the plastic that's derived from PVC, so it's coming from water pipes.

   14. PRPaul Rosolie30:56

       I thought our water pipes were metal.

   15. JRJoe Rogan30:58

       Some water pipes are metal. But, uh, when I used to do construction, we did a lot of houses where they used PVC pipes.

   16. PRPaul Rosolie31:05

       Yeah, see, this, this is-

   17. JRJoe Rogan31:06

       A lot of PVC pipes underneath kitchen sinks and stuff.

   18. PRPaul Rosolie31:08

       (sighs)

   19. JRJoe Rogan31:08

       So all that stuff, when water's going through that, you're picking up these little particles of plastic. And that little, those little particles of plastic, you know, you cook your food in it, you drink a glass of water from the tap, all that stuff is getting you plastic. And then there's cooking in microwave, you know, if you have, like, one of those things you lift up and you have a piece of plastic over the lid. And you cook, microwave with that and it's in a plastic bowl, that's all fucking getting into your body. That's all getting in your blood.

   20. PRPaul Rosolie31:35

       (laughs) yeah. Well, I, I scared myself with that because we had plastic cups on an expedition and we boiled coffee and then I poured it into the plastic cup and I was like, "Ugh." I was like, "We gotta stop doing this." So we started bringing-

   21. JRJoe Rogan31:44

       Yeah.

   22. PRPaul Rosolie31:44

       ... like, metal and glass cups on-

   23. JRJoe Rogan31:46

       Well they-

   24. PRPaul Rosolie31:46

       ... on expeditions.

   25. JRJoe Rogan31:47

       Yeah, obviously they make stuff for campers that you can get and, you know, and that's why we switched to these, um, steel-

   26. PRPaul Rosolie31:52

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan31:52

       ... cups here. We s- we used to just go through so many bottles of water. I was like, "This is fucked." So we-

   28. PRPaul Rosolie31:57

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan31:57

       ... we bought a filtration system and, you know, and, and started using steel cups. But it's like, our, this whole thing in America... One of the things we talked about yesterday with Brigham is the Make America Healthy Again Movement-

   30. PRPaul Rosolie32:10

       Hmm.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Dude, dude, this reminds…

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      Monsters.

   2. PRPaul Rosolie45:01

      Dude, dude, this reminds me, there was a, there was, this, I hated this story, there was a beautiful tree between these two hills, I think it was in the UK or Ireland. I think it was the UK. And like a 16-year-old went out with a chainsaw and just cut this tree down. It was this iconic tree. And no one could figure it out-

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:15

      Ugh.

   4. PRPaul Rosolie45:15

      ... for like two days. And he just went and cut it down. It's just like, man, just-

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:19

      Yeah, people are gross.

   6. PRPaul Rosolie45:21

      ... just stop it.

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:21

      People are gross, and, uh, we all, people are also very short-sighted, and sometimes don't even understand the consequences of what they're doing. They just do things, you know?

   8. PRPaul Rosolie45:30

      I, I, I normally I would agree with you. I just think, I think the world that I've been living in the, the past year, so m- I've been in, in rooms and out in the wild with so many incredible people, and I think that more than ever, people, I, I agree, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're moments away from disaster in any given capacity, but there's also, we're also alive at a time in history where people are more considerate than they've ever been.

   9. JRJoe Rogan45:56

      Yeah, I think so too.

   10. PRPaul Rosolie45:56

       Right?

   11. JRJoe Rogan45:57

       Yeah, I think there's just, you're gonna get everything, right? You're gonna get people that are willing to launch missiles at Israel. You're gonna get people that are willing to chop down ancient mahogany trees. And then you get people like you that dedicate your life to saving the rainforest.

   12. PRPaul Rosolie46:10

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan46:11

       It's one of the cool things about people, 'cause it makes people like you so much more exceptional. It makes people so much more interesting, because it's rare. And then someone dedicating their entire life to doing what you've done is even more rare. And that's part of the cool thing about people. I think, and it's a horrible thing to say, but I think it's unfortunately true, you need evil to appreciate good. You need hate to appreciate love.

   14. PRPaul Rosolie46:34

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan46:35

       It's just a part of the way the human mind and our, s- our just overall psychology and just the way we operate in the world. It's unfortunate, but it's, it's a part of being a person. And I think hate and anger and destruction actually motivates love and construction and, and progress, and doing things correct- and recognizing what can happen if you do things the wrong way. Let's do things the right way. It, it, like organic farming, like people changing their farms to regenerative agriculture farms is coming out of people who are looking at these industrial monocrop agriculture farms and the waste that it produces, which is legal, the waste that it produces in river systems. It's fucking insane. There's a guy that we've had on, his name is, uh, Will Harris, and Will is from, uh, this farm in Georgia called White Oaks Pastures. It's a regenerative farm. He got this farm, it's a family-owned farm. They've had it forever, and it took him years-

   16. PRPaul Rosolie47:36

       Mm-hmm.

   17. JRJoe Rogan47:36

       ... to change this farm from an industrial farm to regenerative agriculture. But there's a section of the river near his property where his property line meets his neighbor. So his neighbor has an industrial farm, and he has regenerative agriculture. And you can see it in the river, there's a clear line of differentiation. Look at that.

   18. PRPaul Rosolie48:01

       I'm guessing his is the clear one?

   19. JRJoe Rogan48:02

       Yes.

   20. PRPaul Rosolie48:03

       Shit.

   21. JRJoe Rogan48:03

       All that stuff, so most of these farmlands-

   22. PRPaul Rosolie48:08

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan48:08

       ... the topsoil-

   24. PRPaul Rosolie48:09

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan48:09

       ... is gone.

   26. PRPaul Rosolie48:09

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan48:09

       There's no- There's- Whoa. Jesus.

   28. PRPaul Rosolie48:11

       Oh, shit.

   29. JRJoe Rogan48:11

       There's no minerals, there's no-

   30. PRPaul Rosolie48:13

       Yeah.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:08:55

   Whoa. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      old guide stone." Like, what does... What?

   2. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:02

      Whoa.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:03

      (laughs) Who may have put that there?

   4. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:04

      Shit.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:04

      Why isn't a museum built around this fucking thing? That's crazy that it's just laying on the ground.

   6. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:09

      No, I mean, it's, it's w- this is just a meteorite?

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:11

      Yes.

   8. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:12

      That is a meteorite. That's super cool.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:13

      So, um, weren't they saying that... So they were telling me that the oldest tree in the world is in Scotland. I was like, "What?"

   10. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:20

       What?

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:00:20

       I don't know how that's true.

   12. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:21

       I thought the oldest tree was, has to be in Africa.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:00:24

       Hmm.

   14. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:25

       Wouldn't it be? (clicks tongue) I thought it was in the Middle East somewhere. It was like one of those, it's like, you know, like six feet tall and like super rooty-

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:00:30

       Right, all fucked up and gnarly.

   16. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:30

       And like, they said like it predates Jesus. Like, you know, it's like ancient, ancient, ancient tree.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:00:34

       Really?

   18. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:34

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:00:35

       Like, what's the oldest tree in the w- this is just... I didn't want to tell the guy. Get the fuck out of here. This isn't the oldest tree. (Scottish accent) He was, he was giving me a tour, a tour of the land.

   20. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:42

       Could be one of the oldest trees in Europe.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:00:43

       These are our coos. These are our coos. They're cows.

   22. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:47

       Coos.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:00:47

       They call the cows coos.

   24. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:48

       Cooes.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:00:48

       I go, "What are you saying, man?" Um, Scotland's oldest tree. So it's 3,000-

   26. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:54

       Whoa.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:00:54

       ... and 9,000 years old.

   28. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:55

       Whoa, whoa, whoa. Between three and nine.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:00:57

       Yeah.

   30. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:57

       That's a big swing.

Episode duration: 3:30:53